I like to observe people. I like to check what shoes they’re wearing and who they choose to have dinner with and why they change their minds and whether they like to study.

I love to observe my sister’s particular way of flourishing her pen just so while she speaks, as though conducting an orchestra of why nots and how comes and surely nots in her head. I’ve never seen a mind quite like hers.

Her nose crinkles after hearing an amusing anecdote from a wise uncle. She has a tendency to drink coffee from a forever-changing collection of mugs, ones commemorating dead poets and bearing an array of colorful words.

I guess pen flourishes and coffee mugs may not capture the eye of everyone. Perhaps others seem more interesting. Alisha is so interesting to me that it hurts a little to look at her too long.

She possesses the unique ability to write, tell, and live stories. Sometimes, she makes a noise in the back of her throat before beginning. Sometimes, she just jumps right in. When Alisha holds a novel, the soft leather binding melts into a world of triumphs and dangers and love. She knows how to touch the hearts of listeners. She reminds them why they love stories, what possessed them to lay down at night and listen to fairy tales.

Her voice is mesmerizing. So wise, yet so young. It isn’t interrupted by pauses of forgetfulness or dry coughs. In fact, some words could float away if your ears didn’t catch them quickly enough. Alisha’s voice seems to know everything, having the heavy velvet feeling of an ancient armchair. Sometimes, her voice speaks other languages to those who need to hear them. It adopts the swaggering boldness of a superhero or the quiet uncertainty of a child on her first day of school.

For many years, I lay at night and listened to her stories. When Alisha reads, I am left with sparks in my eyes and plans in my notebook. Occasionally, I am left with fear and restlessness. If I’m lucky, I am left with peace.

And then Alisha left too. She went to write, read, and live stories elsewhere, in a world full of developing youth. At night, a silhouette sits in a dimly lit library, writing stories.

Although Alisha’s stories may fade into memories, the minds of children are filled with thoughts of knights and pirates and cowboys and thieves. And when the sun sets, I sit on the grass in circles with them, telling stories.