The Unfortunate Son

For my brother Michael. Hamlet once wondered, "To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them." H

I think I finally understand why some people cannot sleep alone at night. Because in the dark, when the world's asleep and time is in slow motion, the voices in my head get louder and louder. They scream at me about the past, about things I said and things I never said, about things I did and things I never did, about things that were, things that could have been and things that never will be again. And all I want is for the voices to shut up! Leave me alone! Let me sleep.
    No, but I never want to sleep alone again.


        He didn't want me to visit him in that place. To see him like that, out of his fortress and stripped of his armor. He told me in a letter that he didn't belong in there with all those lunatics. But he said it sure beat the hell out of jail. So, in a way, he'd beaten the system... by slitting his wrists.

   
 
    He shuffled into the dayroom like an old man. I stood up and hugged him, awkwardly. He didn’t look at all like my brother. They had forcefed him sedatives, antidepressants and anti-psychotics. I had never thought of him as psychotic.
    "Damn, it's good to see you,” I said.
    “Yeah, you too. It’s been a while, huh? You look good.”
    “So do you.”
    “Oh, don’t lie. Yeah, it's not so bad here. The doctors are nice.  Beats lock up, that’s for sure. Sometimes it's even entertaining. Actually I've started taking notes for a book I plan to write when I get out.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Yeah. I mean, some crazy s**t goes on in here. Ha, imagine that, crazy s**t in a mental hospital. There's this guy who stays in the room next to mine. Wait, you see him, he's right over there talking to those old people.. Anyway, that guy jumped up in the middle of group the other day, when we’re supposed to be talking about our feelings, and he whipped out his c**k and started jacking it. The Nurse jumped up and started screaming, Put that thing away! Put that thing away! And all the other guys were just clapping.”
    “Now that's entertainment.”
    “Yeah, and oh yeah, there's this other guy, I think they moved him to level 3, though, higher security, but he used to run up and down the halls, banging on the walls so that everybody would come out, and then he would throw his s**t like he was Jackson Pollack and the whole ward was his canvas.”
    “That's quite creative. I’ll give him that.”
    “Yeah, everybody's a genius in here. Misunderstood genius. That's why I'm taking notes. These people remind me that I'm not quite insane yet.  I don't know, man, sometimes I feel like being around all these lunatics might just turn me into one."
    By the time he got out a year later, his worst fear had come true.
     
   


    He'd gotten a job. I think he was even seeing a girl. I was proud of him. I thought that everything was all right. I thought he was all right.
    The phone rang early in the morning. New Year's day. Too early. I don't know why I answered. I should have let it ring. I should have let it ring and ring and ring.
    "Hello?"
    Silence. And then a moaning voice replied. The voice sounded too small and frightened to be my father's. He sounded like he was drowning. And he was.
    "He's  -- dead! Michael's dead!" And those words breached the dam and the wave of his despair washed over me.
    I felt suddenly all alone in a tiny boat floating to the edge of the world and all I wanted was drift into oblivion where no voices could reach me, no hands could touch me, no truth could find me.
    I paced around in circles. My sight grew dim. My nose started bleeding. I wanted to tear my hair out. I wanted to tear my heart out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I could only shake my head and say, No...No...No...
    At that moment I realized I was truly alone in the world. I was no one's savior. I was no one's brother, not anymore. Not anymore.
    He had finally killed his demons.

               
    Two days flashed by in a moment. The longest, most agonizing moment of my life. Every other second I forgot how to breathe. And every time I made myself breathe I saw his face.
    That's when the voices came.  And they got louder and louder.
    "It’s all your fault. It’s all your fault!"
   

    There in his casket, at the viewing, he looked so peaceful with his hands joined on his stomach, in a suit he hadn't worn in years, surrounded by flowers he couldn't smell, surrounded by people he never thought would cry when he died. He didn't look at all like my brother. He looked gray and cold and hard, like a concrete effigy.
    And who were these people surrounding him? Weeping and comforting each other. Where had they been when he was alive?
    And now they show up, like hyenas. And they hold back their laughter as they sniff around and get a good whiff of mortality.
     I saw through them. I saw through their practiced smiles, their rehearsed apologies and their dry sobs.  And I pushed through them to reach him. I wanted to grab him. I wanted to throw him over my shoulder and run away before the hyenas devoured him. But I was a coward.
    And so I stood and whispered an eternal question.
    Why?
    I stood there watching him for any twitch of his sewn up eyes or any flicker of his finger or rise of his chest. Suddenly I saw the corner of his lips curve into a smile. And I knew it was for me.
     I knew he was trying to tell me that he was all right now.
     I finally understood what it meant to live with demons raging inside of you, every day trying to claw their way out of your mind. I understood that he'd fought those demons till the death.  He’d had no other choice. He'd finally succeeded.
    Sometimes to succeed you got to pay the ultimate price.

               
    “Blackbird singing in the dead of night
    Take these broken wings and learn to fly
    all your life
    you were only waiting for this moment to arise.
    Blackbird singing in the dead of night
    Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
    All your life
    you were only waiting for this moment to be free”   
   
    I don't know if I believe in Heaven. No, I don’t think so. I don't know if I believe in God. No, I don’t think so. I don't know if my brother heard me as I stood singing that song with my hand on his casket, right before they lowered him into the ground.
   
    I don't even know if he was really in there.
   
    No, I like to think he wasn't in there at all. It was the demons we buried that day.  

Author's Note

This was actually written to be performed (Oral Interpretation of Literature).

Any and all comments welcome. Thanks--

Reviews

[Grace]

This was good...very real. I like that it is more about the emotions than the details of what is happening. Great work!

Quick change - need to add the word "to" in the part that says "all I wanted was to drift into oblivion"