Unsurprisingly, I read a lot of published books and books-in-progress and just plain stories-in-progress for my MFA program. In my Form and Techniques in Fiction class, we read around one novel per week to study different forms and techniques that can be used in fiction (who would've thought, right?). The latest was We the Animals, by Justin Torres. It's a novel comprised of flash fiction pieces that tell the coming-of-age story of a boy who's growing up in a household with two brothers. The novel explores the "we" identity of sibling-hood deeply, and this was what I had on my mind when my own brother drove from Kentucky to visit me this week.

Someday, I might turn this into a short story. But for now, here you go:

We the Explorers

We liked to test our limits in those early days. We drove plastic four-wheelers through the grass of the backyard, tearing up the hillside as we tested how hard we could push the whining engines. When the wheels spun uselessly on clods of clay, we sunk our fingernails into the ground, collapsing ant colonies and earthworm holes in our search for buried treasure. Once found, we clutched the arrowheads close to our little chests like the precious and exotic artifacts they were. 

"Hannah and Alan! Come inside!" Mom yelled. Diamond liked to sit at the glass door and watch us through the potted peace lilies, her black and white fur bristling at the first sign of danger. 

We tumbled down the hill triumphantly, tracking mud into the kitchen as we thrust our treasure in our mother's face, screaming about our adventures.

Back in those innocent days, there was never singular. It was always, "Hannah and Alan, go do this," or "Hannah and Alan, stop doing that." We were linked by blood and sweat and snot. We were linked by shared punishments and bath time and the crash of overturned bins of toys in the play room. We were linked by reaching hands and knees to the back when one of us had a nightmare and crawled into the other's bed. "We" was never a choice. It was just the way life was.

Then two became three, and we left the archaeology of our arrowhead hill behind. We traded it for six acres of land and a house with a haunted attic. We pretended to be detectives and track down the source of the footsteps above us during our first summer there. I was brave when Alan and Conner were with me, but in my bed at night, I'd tremble and shake as I heard the heavenly creaking. The case went unsolved for months until we told our stepdad, and he found a raccoon living up there with all our old clothes and picture books. 

Our favorite game was adventuring in the woods behind our house. We ranked ourselves according to skill level, which actually meant that Conner, the expert, just decided he wanted to go first, and Alan, the novice, was too proud to go last, so he went in the middle. That left me, the beginner, with the last spot. 

The three of us explored the topography of our new landscape, from the pond covered in thick layers of green algae, to the barn inhabited by a grumpy raccoon, to the stream running through the woods. It was always the three of us, tramping through the wilderness. We were comfortable in our roles: Conner was the boss, yelling out directions and making the plans; Alan was the follower, sticking to Conner's side and always trying to compensate for his status as the youngest; and I was the rule follower, the one who was useful to keep around for my art at predicting exactly what our parents would say about Conner and Alan's latest foolhardy exploit. 

On this particular day, Conner instructed us to pack a drawstring gym bag full of any snacks we could find. It was summer, on the precipice of change for our "we"; Conner was beginning to be less interested in exploring and more interested in video games than making mud bricks and digging in the creek, which meant we would soon follow in his footsteps. But that day, we were united. We were explorers through and through. Alan and I raided the pantry for packs of gummies, Girl Scout cookies, and leftover Easter candy. We stuffed the bags full, throwing in three water bottles. 

The sun scorched the earth, shriveled brown grass crunching beneath us. Our practiced feet crossed the uneven terrain easily, and we passed underneath the canopy of trees. The air was musty and close, smelling of mushrooms and mildew. Everything here was a vibrant green where the water was trapped in the creek and the latticework of leaves shielded the world below from the sun's glare. During the summer, we had to patrol our route at least once a week to make sure the undergrowth didn't smother it. 

We soon reached the barbed wire fence that marked the edge of our property. Conner didn't stop and wait. He found the spot where a tree branch had fallen, creating a dip, and stepped over it to the other side. Alan and I both located our in: a stretch of wire that had stretched and been bent out of shape enough to allow a small body underneath it. 

It was an unspoken rule that no one would ask to return or where we were going. We walked for what felt like hours, passing through whistling fields of tall grass and thickets of thorns. Eventually, we emerged at the edge of someone's property. 

"What is this stuff?" Alan asked. 

We had stumbled upon a graveyard of rusted memories of another lifetime. An old tractor lay half submerged in the ground. Farm tools, so twisted and covered in a build up of minerals that they were barely recognizable, were scattered everywhere. Conner picked up an old Coke can. It had expired decades earlier. We climbed over the relics, sifting through and examining them as if we had come across a sunken ship filled with forgotten treasures.

It was nostalgic, in a strange way, to imagine someone stumbling upon our home's version of this heap of history in the future. Would they find the K'nex Conner and Alan had used to build a rope all the way around the house? The Pokemon cards we'd convinced our neighbor to buy from us? The plastic spy equipment we'd used to listen in on our parents' conversations?

In the end, there was nothing for us there. We turned back, bags growing empty as we slowly consumed our stockpile of sugar. We were lost, and we lamented that fact frequently, though none of us were really worried. We fought for the right to speak over the others about our injuries from the trek—a bruised shin, a waterlogged shoe, a thorn to the palm. We were linked by the common struggle, by the sweat dripping down our faces, by the dirt dusting our clothes, by the chapped lips and weary feet.

When we finally passed the barn, we emerged into the field beside the house like Olympic sprinters, fighting to be the first one to recount the tale to our waiting parents. An explorer was only as good as the stories they brought back, after all.