For my little brother

Two Souls

"It would've made sense, if my brother was a dog or a cat. If you ran short of money and needed to get rid of one family member, wouldn't the pets go first? But my brother was no dog. My brother was no cat. He was human, like me, and even though he costed more to feed and to take care of than any dog, the thought of throwing him out and leaving him on his own seemed... no, is, wrong. My father was right when he said that my brother was the reason we were all suffering. Just because he's right on something doesn't mean he's right on others, though. My mother refused to abort him because she believed he had intrinsic value. He was more valuable than any object she could think of. Even though he was the weight that made us drop, you'd have to be mad to discard him.

"In many ways, my brother is the reason I'm in here right now. I would actively seek revenge on anyone who condemned me, naturally; I would hate them with my heart, my mind, and my soul. If I saw my brother right now, it would be understandable if I tore him to shreds and murdered him, spilling his blood onto my hands. But..." He briefly looked down at his hands, as if to check for blood. "...if I saw him right now... I would run over to him, hug him, kiss him, and whisper into his ear that I love him dearly. I'm not saying this for appearances; I say it because I mean it. I really do. He's my brother, and he'll always be my brother, no matter who or what anyone or anything tried to do to change it."

His hand came up to wipe away some tears. "I can almost see him right now," he said, looking at a vacant spot in the cell. "He turns around to see me. I will him to come over, and he comes running towards me. Whenever he nears me, though, he always fades away, and no part of him ever reaches me. Not even the wind."

I swallowed and shifted uncomfortably. He was going deep — very deep — with this. Every time he mentioned his brother, I thought of Evan, and it always brought tears to my eyes. "Last night I had a dream about my brother, my little brother," I said. "It was the second time the dream had happened. I saw him standing atop Smokey Mountain, looking into the horizon at the setting sun. I cry out to him, and he hears me and turns around. We run towards each other as fast as our legs can carry us, but we never meet. He always vanishes into thin air, as if he had never existed. I'm left lying face-first on the ground, all by myself, all alone, without him." I took a long, slow, deep breath. "I always want to see him, yet I hate that dream. I hate it because I can't touch him. I hate it because he always disappears. I hate it because... it's not real. I wake up to find myself in prison again."

We stared ahead, trying to envision our siblings in front of us, running towards us, but never making it home. I extended my arm, trying to hold onto the hand of my brother as he reached out towards me, as if we both knew his image was waning, hoping to make contact before he disappeared completely. Everything seemed real — his hand, his body, his face — right up until the point where my hand simply passed through his. A blink, and he was gone.

"I'm dreaming. I know it," I said. "Love makes you delirious, makes you stupid. Love something and it builds four walls around you. You're surrounded by it, unable to escape. You're left seeing things that aren't really there, leaving others to believe you're cuckoo while you cry out to the image in your head. But it's just that. An image."

Ricky furrowed his brow, and I could tell that he disagreed with my statement. "What was the last significant thing you said to your brother?"

My mind raced back to the moment when my mother grabbed my brother and hauled him out of the visiting room. No, not that... before that. I told him to keep thinking about me, to not forget about me. Just think about the good times we spent together...

I went back further, back to the day I left home. Evan was crying; he didn't want me to leave him alone. He hugged me one last time, one I feared might be the last.