I’m the oldest of five kids. This meant that, growing up, I was often left in charge of caring for my younger siblings. On one such occasion in my early teens, my parents left to take my brother Joseph to the doctor. We thought he had the flu at first. Then his eye sockets grew sunken and he turned gray. My mom called from the clinic to tell us Joseph was in Diabetic Ketoacidosis. His blood sugar was so high they couldn’t get an accurate reading and he was being rushed by ambulance to the nearest hospital pediatric Intensive Care Unit. They didn’t know if he would live. After I hung up, I remember sitting in the basement clutching my remaining siblings while we cried, desperately trying to hold us together and make it all okay.

​

Since that day, I’ve had reoccurring nightmares about something going horribly wrong and having to keep all my siblings together. The situation changes. Sometimes the house is on fire or we’ve crashed the car into a river and I’ve got to get them all to safety. Its also gotten more extreme. In other versions, we’ve been attacked by soldiers, thugs, and, in one bizarrely vivid version, zombies controlled by an evil mastermind driving a convertible(try analyzing that one, Freud). Inevitably, I always end up carrying one or two of my squirming smaller siblings while searching for another that’s gone missing or taken it into their little head to single-handedly confront whatever it is that’s attacking us. The dream is always about striving to hold it all together and keep them safe. 

​

The webseries I’m currently working on explores this twisted personal fear of mine through the sci-fi story of another older sister who is trying to hold it all together and keep her younger siblings safe as everything goes horribly wrong all around her.

​

Below is an excerpt from one of the episodes.