It was the void that filled me up; I had never felt so brimming before. Badly perspiring with my watery palms constantly rubbing against each other, my hands felt warm to me; cheeks were so for a long time now. My half – snapped armchair has been gazing mockingly at me for hours now, the clattering ceiling fan annoying me enough with its dreadful melody. I had none to be with now, except for the pervasive loneliness dominating me. I have lost him; people say “forever” but I don’t believe them.
The thunderous roars outside reminded me to cook dinner. The aroma of the wetted earth rouses me to the core. I was content with him, and therefore he left me.
– skepticism is worse when you’re alone. And I was then. Broken dreams in the countryside lay buried in thousand splashes of rain. The dead of the night shows me that I have nothing to put in the boiling water. Another night like this.
Love is what a dove finds while sailing over the shallow turquoise and I with my brother. “BROTHER”…a nice name for a man! Twenty – seven autumns have I seen pass by and in each I have strolled the pathway from our house leading to the “Precious Circus”. The twenty – eighth one was not that good for me – we went for a stroll through the grassy lane which veered onto a pebbled pathway, adjoining a fast, icy rill. We stopped there. The last stop ever. I have never been able to bear hunger and the stream seemed so too, that day; hungry.
He had syncope since childhood. I was aware, or maybe wasn’t, I don’t remember. It was rather normal when he suddenly dropped down. But it wasn’t when I tried calling him several times, giving rather heavy nudges, but to no avail. He wouldn’t respond. The last I saw of him was at the edge of the pathway overlooking the stream. My hands were shaking.
The splashing sound confirmed it. What else could have I done? I couldn’t tolerate hunger, remember? The flutter was furious that day. I couldn’t say the last goodbye.
But people say I never had a brother. Just a broken family. Maybe they didn’t know I had lost one. How foolish of them! I can see him from my kitchen window even now, standing and smiling at me, while the water in my saucepan dries away.
An undergraduate with a Political Science major, Ahan is a passionate observer of regional, international and national politics. He holds a keen interest of perceiving societies from different beholder’s views, and loves listening to people debate on almost anything.