|
He sat upon the high rise stool in his kitchen. It was one of the warmest rooms in the house, but even sitting in there could not warm his foul mood. He rested his head upon his hand and sighed. It had been a long day. One of many long days in his long time on Earth. He was only a teenager but he felt as if he was in the last years of his life.
He traced the marble patterning of the food counter with his forefinger on the other hand. He sighed again, his mood sinking lower.
All his days seemed to melt into one long blur. He'd reached the point, where he'd begun to run on automatic pilot. His body cried out to him to rest - he was tired. Yet he didn't sleep. His skin would shout out everytime he knicked himself with his razor. But he wouldn't soothe it. He'd let the blood trickle down his neck onto the collar of his crisp blue shirt.
He couldn't remember when he'd started feeling so down, but then again he couldn't remember a time he hadn't felt that way.
Warm, golden sunlight poured in from the window above the sink. Crys of laughter filtered in from the garden through the opening.
He turned up and got up from his stool. His body felt so heavy as he rose to his feet. It was as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. He dragged his feet as he moved over to the sink.
He prevented himself from looking out of the window. Instead he ran his hand over the cool steel of the draining board. But it was no good. He knew he'd look sooner or later. It was like driving past a road crash. You didn't want to look. You knew it would upset you if you did - but you looked anyway.
He rose his head, pushing his short blonde dreadlocks back out of his face. He squinted as his eyes slowly became accustomed to the bright light of the sun as it shone down and reflected off the ground below it.
He looked into his backyard. It seemed so peaceful and still - idilic, only it wasn't.
His brother and his father were shooting hoops, using the basketball net that hung above their garage. His mother was sitting at the patio table, her books spread out in front of her, shaded from the blinding sun by the parasol. She'd look up occasionally and smile as she watched the two men sporting around.
He scowled at the happy scene before him. It looked like somthing from one of those corny family movies. A perfect picture.
Only it wasn't a perfect picture. That was the problem. He should have been out there with them, but that would hurt him far more than watching them from afar.
It had taken him many months to figure out where his pain was stemming from. At first he didn't want to believe it - he didn't want to accept his own answer. It was his brother.
His brother - the sporting hero, the people's person, the eco warrior. Everybody loved him. Everybody.
Including her.
But what wasn't tolove. Even he had admired him once. He'd looked up to him, the way all little brothers do. He wanted to be just like him. He wanted to board like him, to play basketball like him, to have the same effect on her as he did.
She was his one true love. The only one he wanted. Everything he wanted. She was pretty, clever and she wasn't completely absorbed in herself. She was always willing to listen to him. She had been the only one he's trusted - until recently. He'd been so blind he hadn't seen it. She'd used him to get to his brother - the god in the regulation red beret.
So now he had no one. No one at all.
He couldn't even talk to his father - the one person a boy should be able to talk to. His dad wasn't interested in him. They didn't share the same interests. He couldn't relate to his father because unlike his brother he wasn't just some dumb jock.
Until recently he'd been able to talk to his mother. He'd always been close to her, the pair had been practically inseperable when he was younger. He didn't know how he felt about that. She understood him better than anyone else in the whole world, but she was a woman. It never seemed right that she was the strong one, that it was she who protected him. It embarrased him. It should have been the other way around. She was pretty, clever, witty and a good listener - very similar to Trudy in many repsects, but she never ever compared him to his brother. He loved her more than anything else in the world. He'd go mad without her.
It had all changed recently though. She was a doctor - her work load had tripled wih the recent epidemic of this new aging virus. He couldn't blame her for trying to do her job. A job she was good at.
But he could blame him - his darling brother.He had turned everything against him. He'd shut him out and all he could do was watch from the outside.
He sighed for a third time and and pounded his fist on the draining board, in time with the basket ball as it bounced on the crazy paving outside.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
He closed his eyes and winced. He regretted it instantly, knowing the morning would bring another purple and yellow bruise.
He turned from the window. It was too painful to watch, knowing he could never be with them, be accepted even though all he wanted to do now was burst into a stream of tears and cuddle up to his mother. Just to hear her say everything would be alright.
He dragged his feet as he walked over to the fridge. He slouched down and rested his forhead against the cool, blue enamel. His mind was buzzing with thought as the motor inside the fridge caused the casing to vibrate lightly.
He sighed again as he straightened up. Attached to the fridge by a magnet was a glossy photo of him and his brother. It had only been taken recently - on the last day of the school term. They sat at the base of the tree in their front garden, wearing their school uniform. His brother had got him in a playful headlock, fake smiles adorned their faces.
His mother had took it. She said she wanted a picture of 'her boys'. Neither he or his brother could begrudge her that. All the adults had become sentimental and wistful with the arrival of this new virus.
He scowled and pulled the picture from under the magnet. It was fake. It wasn't accurate. It didn't show how they really were.
It was a lie. A lie to fool everyone who saw it, into believing that life was perfect. This photograph cloaked all his pain and all his anguish.
He threw it onto the work surface and went back to the window. His father was sitting besides his mother now and they were both watching his brother dribble the ball up and down the drive.
As the sun set behind his brother, highlighting his chiselled features, his vision focused in on him. His blood boiled and his heartbeat began to quicken. He hated him. He hated his own brother, his own flesh and blood. But he'd get his own back. He just had to bide his time, be patient.
His time would come.
Until then, he'd have to remain as he was.
An outsider looking in.
|
