A brother's story

It isn’t poetry, nor is it art.
It isn’t to be spoken of, nor remembered.

His death.

He was soft but agile. He was silver but dull. He was alive but dying.

One day, he thought aloud. "Are all deaths tragedies?"

"Of course not. The deaths of some save the world from chaos" I said foolishly.

"So are you saying some deserve to die?" He questioned.

"No, I’m saying that some have filled their existence with so much negativity they are walking destruction. So it’s better if the world didn’t contain them" I answered.

He stared at me blankly, probably wondering deeply about my simple answer. He always did that. Where one would see a blue curtain fluttering in the gentle wind, he would see sadness etched onto a still wall, forced to be pushed about, desperately grasping the railing, away from its wall.

"Why are there no stories about deaths now? Why does the world only remember the deaths by war, the more beautiful, poetic deaths?"

"All that blood was never once beautiful, my dear" I whispered gently. "All those deaths were not meant for history text books. It was never meant to end poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry. All that blood was once just red"

I stared at his face. No expression. Still. Absolute. I walked over to the couch he was seated at and took my seat next to him. I reached over and cupped his thin cheek in my hand, running my thumb over his high cheek bone. "They will write books and make films, reminding us there once was a man who stole from the rich to give to the poor, a queen who enjoyed watching her prisoners being torn apart by animals that she made it a sport, a greedy leader who forgot his loyalty and killed several thousand men in the world’s most fierce war" His olive green eyes grew wide as I continued, "But we will never know what it took to kill the same people you once served, to pour poison into the  King’s mind, to take the lives of children like your own. The books and films... they will never tell you why a man was driven past his human limits, why a noble became a monster"

His cheeks flushed a deep pink, but his skin remained an icy cold. I stroked his hair backwards. He used to love it, but he only allowed his sister to do it. And I always did. Whatever makes my brother happy.

"Will you know?" He asked eyes wide.
"Know what?"
"My story. The mysterious why. Will you write about it someday?"
I stood up abruptly. "Do not say such things!" I shouted. "You won’t go before me Harold. Your story will be told by someone you are yet to meet"

***

3 years and 6 days later, seated in a dimly lit room on the same couch with a table dragged towards me, I put my pen down on the paper set before me. The ink sprays across, fluently. I write a story. A story of a young boy with scoliosis. How he was at war with everyday, screaming silently, bleeding invisible blood. Until eventually he couldn’t anymore. I write about his death.

It isn’t poetry, nor is it art.
It isn’t to be spoken of, nor remembered.

But has to be written.