The happy place

This memory came to me with a new light: I may have been writing this before but now a subsequent thought has come to put it all like I said in a new light.

I may or may not have told about the relative who would come for Christmas and who can be summarised neatly with this anecdote: that she farted loudly on the stainless steel bowl with cheese puffs; I remember the sound as a ringing bell type of engine sound, maybe from a moped, but that sound is likely amplified in my memory by the impression such a pointless act of malevolence made on me then.

In her teens, she had raven black hair and a chipped tooth and moreover: nails like claws! She had this very powerful influence over my sister and she would tell her what to do and think basically, and this time I spoke up on my sister’s behalf because I didn’t like the way she was treated.

This prompted a strong reaction from my relative, her eyes turning black and I think I briefly saw a forked tongue through the chipped tooth. She rended me on my neck: her nails digging bleeding red lines of blood running down, staining my clothes but I didn’t move an inch. I didn’t flinch.

Why didn’t my sister step up for me then?

And why hasn’t it occurred to me until now that she could’ve done something or said something?

Anything?