"Is he really gone?” It was the first thought that came to her mind as she woke up. He was gone. And, soon, this bedroom, the house in the eastern corner of which it sat, and the tiny garden outside, with its gnarled old red hibiscus and the half-grown mango tree they had planted together, all those could be gone as well. It was the strangest feeling ever. She could not believe she would never see him again.
Mia knew that life would go on, and her routine would not change much, since he was always silent, as if he were not present. And she knew that it was going to happen. Her brother Ryan had been suffering from a terminal disease for the last thirteen years. She knew he was going to leave, sooner or later. Still, she felt emptiness choking her. She tried crying at her brother’s death, but she could not. She was too empty to cry.
Ryan was three years older than her. Whenever she thought about him, only one word came to her mind- genius. It seemed as if he and physics were made for each other. He was smitten by quantum physics in particular. Earlier she used to envy his extraordinary talent, but gradually she grew sympathetic as she saw that his talent was a curse for him. He could only manage 70% in the 12th grade Board Exams, as he had never touched any other book, except physics and mathematics. This was the sole reason of his not getting into IITs, despite getting the highest marks in Physics and Mathematics, he could not cross chemistry cutoff. She could not understand how he had managed to even pass in other subjects until he told her his secret. On the day of the exam, he could understand the basics of the chapter on just hearing the keywords spoken by other students during their revision.
They were each other’s confidants. She was the person about whom he cared the most. This meant a lot because he didn’t care a bit even about himself. He was so immersed in his research, that he forgot to bathe until someone commented on how badly he smelled! He used to skip meals unless Mummy started having panic-attacks!
Though she loved him dearly, she was also disappointed by him. Everytime when he got bullied, she used to fight for him. She resented him to some extent because he could not stand up for himself or her. But she also knew that he could never stand up for anything, as he was bound to his wheelchair for the rest of his life due to his terminal disease. One day, when she was bullied by some students in school, Ryan tried to get up from his wheelchair to protect her, but instead he fell to the ground. The bullies started laughing out loud, holding their stomachs. She felt ashamed of her brother, looking at him with disgust. He merely looked at her like a helpless lamb to be slain. And that expression continued to haunt her even after his death.
She felt bad for him. He had never hurt anyone. Still, he was hurt in a most cruel way by fate. Sometimes she felt that he too was responsible for that. Their parents had great expectations for both of them, as they both were bright. But as his inclination towards physics started becoming an obsession, her father sometimes said, “His genius sometimes scares me.” He was right. Ryan’s obsession had distanced him from reality. And adding to his woes, he was also rejected by his childhood crush, Rayna, a beautiful girl, who believed that a differently abled boy studying in a local degree college didn’t deserve her. Whenever Mia advised him to take care of his real life instead of physics, he used to say, "What you think is reality is not real. This is only a projection of reality.” Then he went on to explain the Heisenberg Principle of Uncertainty to her. Tired of his physics lecture, Mia had stopped advising him.
Strangely, two months before dying, Ryan developed sudden interest in chemistry. Sometimes their father taunted, “If honorable scientist sir had studied this much chemistry for JEE exam, he would be living in a grand mansion.” His taunt was heartless, but it was true. Their father sometimes cried silently at how her brother had underutilized his potential, believing that was why both fate and world were toying with him.
