Burning Bridge

This is the edited version of "Not Here" with a new title::

Last night was almost perfect.
He brought me red tulips, not yellow ones like he did last time. I simply frowned because of the color, yet happy about the gesture I quickly put a smile—but he caught me a second too late.  At that moment, he remembered that I hated red flowers it reminded me of death, putting me in a sad mood.
I felt bad for his feelings and we no longer looked at each other.  I didn’t say anything; instead I kissed him hoping to make him feel better. It didn’t and I knew it didn’t because of the feel of his touch.  It was plain, unaffectionate, cold and forced to be placed on me because he knew I was trying to make him feel better.  I didn’t want that kind of sex that men give you when they feel bad, so they give it to you.  I separated us with the idea that my desires had all of a sudden become abandoned.

Abandoned like that time he didn’t show up for the banquet.  I was receiving my first award for “Book of the Year” from the New York Times.  I had a speech and thanked him for always being there, a little white lie of course, but to prove the biggest point, he wasn’t.  Not surprised, I didn’t feel anything when he didn’t show up.  I had high hopes that he would show. Even if he were really late, like “fifteen minutes before the banquet ended” kind of late I wouldn’t have cared.  All I wanted were the gestures to be made.  David never tried and I barely ever cared now a days.

I thought I would be having one of my many great mornings again, today.  It actually turned out to be a very lonely one, the first of so many more to come-but not stay.

Lonely mornings are never permanent.

If he only knew that for every time he left that he wasn't hurting me, he was simply giving me permission to enjoy my mornings with someone else. That some one else was always so much grateful to wake up next to me & spend the day indoors wrapped in my self-made quilts, drinking tea & watching old romantic movies that got you in the mood to make your own
“Aagghh!!!!!!”

He never drank tea. Shit or coffee for that matter… and who the hell doesn't like a good old romantic movie?

I loved David when he wasn’t always full of excitement but when he was detailed.  He would place a Hershey kiss every morning after he’d fix the bed so it would be there by the time I came to get dressed after our shower.  He’d send cards to my job every other day with one simple sentence describing either our love or why he was in love with me.  Always the simplest, yet touching gestures.  His persona always made him sexier than what he really was.  His smooth smirk that he’d give me instead of a complete smile turned me on and his not overly built body always streamed into my mind during the daytime when I wasn’t thinking about anything else.

I'm looking out the window and it looks windy outside.  The trees are swaying way to wildly for me to go out and see for myself; it looks cold so I shall enjoy my silence at home.

I'm trying to not over think the fact that it’s over, so we've said so many times before.  I know he'll be back, but this time I'm too tired to take him back.  Hopefully he feels the same & will make it easier for me.
His hair from shaving is still in the sink along with the razor and shaving cream bits splattered all over the mirror’s edges.  He left the water in the bathroom running, again.  His morning breath is still clutched on to the pillows on our--my bed.  His scent is still lingering through the hall crevices in my home, turning every corner finding it’s way to my nostrils.  His unfinished plate of eggs, bacon and toast is still sitting, waiting alone on the table trying to get the attention of his glass of o.j. sitting on top of the counter.  It was calling my attention instead.

I hate the thought of him leaving without a full stomach to work—and once again, upset.
Lingering, the smell of bacon awakens me from my not-conscience thoughts, keeping me from dozing out deeper than I wanted to for today.  Today, out of all days, he decides to leave.  He was always selfish.
I was heading to Kenya to work on my third book.  I was happy to leave the city of New York.  I hated its winters.  The snow was never on the ground for too long before it turned into nasty looking mush.  I could never wear the shoes I wanted to wear.  December was getting too brown for me.  September was always still green and the months after that were tolerable.  October was always yellow and once orange November cunningly came about, it was time to start planning a trip somewhere.  December never suited the city.  It made it look it’s dullest unless you were trapped between heavy traffic, annoying tourists who’d never seen so many lights and the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center.

He was supposed to take me to the airport, which reminded me that I had to call Ray to drive me.  I didn’t want to leave my car at the airport.  Ray would have to help me pack- he’s definitely a better packer(than me).  I always thought whoever could make all my stuff fit in two suitcases was a better packer.  I always over packed.  I wish my mother wasn’t in Toronto, visiting her brother.  I always enjoyed watching her pack my stuff.  Such a detailed woman. The memories start to wander, like they always do.  One person I never hated to think about was my mother.  Everything about her was graceful, with the exception of her mouth. It never kept shut for too long.  Too wise for her own age and too young in the face- I always believed no one could know everything but she always did.  She was a typical Capricorn woman.  Capricorns had the oldest souls, so said, and living with one and bumping into a few in my own world I can agree.

Capricorns were never permanent in my life, either.  They annoyed me easily.  They always tried telling you what to do, like they knew best.  Their personas are positive, most of the time meaning well but they have not caught on- how to tell people what to do by giving advice instead of demanding.  It took my mother until I was nineteen to understand that I will do what I wanted- not what was demanded of me.  I was better with advice, I listen carefully, when given.  I’ve always been a stubborn being- mostly all Aries are.
I used to think of my mother as an artist in disguise.  I’ve heard her singing many times before, lovely voice.  Not one like Mariah Carey’s or anything, but very pleasant.  She could paint too, at least realistic things—I consider myself an abstract painter, like everything else in my world.  I wanted to know what went through her mind when she’d be sitting alone on our black sofas on the porch that she refused to get rid of.  There were very few people who I wish I’d known what they were thinking.  Not to many people ever interested me.  Too many people were grounded in the dirt, truly believing that wherever they stood is where they belonged.

“Riiiiinnngggg!”
Then again I wasn’t sure if I wanted my mom here.  Not now.

“Riiiiinnngggg!”
She’d only tell me that the relationship I was having was unhealthy, the way we always argued, then making up again.  I wonder if my mom knew what make up sex was.  She was right though.

“Riiiinnngggg!”
Ok, now I’m really annoyed that I have to pick up the phone.
“Buzz me in, I’m downstairs.”

Damn it, Ray!  Couldn’t it be five more minutes?  I needed to get my thoughts together- they were all over the place.  Everything seemed to be fast paced now.
After buzzing him in I placed myself back to where I was.  Sitting Indian style on my kitchen chair I rewrapped myself in my quilt and finished up my pomegranate tea.  I looked at my watch, loving the way the second hand ticked so smoothly, reading 10:15.  Never late, always early that guy.  Guess I liked that trait- I was always barely making it anywhere on time.
I saw him come in.  The door was still unlocked from earlier- I didn’t lock it because he always did when I left it open every time David stormed out.  I only locked it when I was escorting David to the door and giving him his “goodbye, have a great day at work” kiss.  Ray had his own key to my apartment, anyway.

He kissed me.  Lovely.  Always lovely.

Ray went about putting his coat down along with the other extra stuff he had on.  I laughed to myself.  Not even David had a key…and don’t sit there judging me, I liked it that way.  I never had a boyfriend have a spare key because I didn’t like them coming in and out as they pleased.  Ray knew better- guess he never wanted to mess up what we had, as small as it was, he knew not to get too comfortable—he isn’t my boyfriend, and boyfriends love to get comfortable.  He was always so smooth.  He wasn’t a man of words; he left that to me.  He was more a man of gestures, actions- detailed actions.  He left the wording to me and I preferred it that way.  He understood that perfectly.

“Showered?”
“No.”  I smirked the way I always do when he asks me.  Even if I already took one he always knew I’d take the time to take another one- with him.  There’s something he provides for me.  I don’t know what it is yet but I think it’s between the things that he does that David doesn’t and how affectionate and beautiful I think Ray is.

He carried me off from the chair.  Nestling my head into his chest, I heard someone angrily banging on the door.
Silently to myself, “it’s him”.  Ray looked down at me as I ignored it.  Once he saw my reply to the knocking he ignored it too.

"Without Shoes"

This is a short story that I am currently working on; definitely not finished with it yet, just a little stuck on where it should go.

Hot.  It was so hot…again. 

The earth had felt as if it were getting hotter everyday, or it could’ve just been me and the fact that I didn’t find a place with a roof for the past couple of days that would’ve kept me away from the morning sun.   It’s rays stretched out so far towards me.  I sweated in my sleep, even at night when people had found it the coolest.  This was the season I sometimes wished I had one of those spinning things that people carried around with them; some of them even sprayed water out on your face.  The thought of my face being cleaned made me smile up towards the sun.

I was thirsty. So thirsty, every morning.  I never felt as if I had enough water to drink.  I never had enough of anything.  I was always a few pennies off from getting a cup of coffee or a dollar or two off of getting a complete meal since none of the things’ prices were what they said they were on the menus.  They always charged me what they called ‘tax’.  Then I started memorizing how much the things I wanted costs.  Do you know what it is, sometimes, to not have enough?  Most of the time.  Sometimes I walk back and forth for hours, in the train station, at a decent pace, trying to find pennies…nickels, dimes…a quarter if it were that easy.  I make sure to go slow so not to miss out on anything.  I did once.  I saw two quarters laying next to the sewer cages that laid on the sidewalks.  I feared them, never walked on them, not even tip toed when I had one of my non-sober moments.  I was always afraid of falling through one, one of those sewer cages where you could hear the trains deep, deep below.

As I bent down to pick up the two quarters, my body movement came to a standstill, coming up I saw the biggest, shiniest brown eyes staring back at me, right in front of my face-so close that I can nearly touch the person’s nose with mine.  Genuine was a feeling I hadn’t felt in years and now it was staring right back as I saw it through the reflection in her eyes.  I had become conscience of myself.  My appearance was rough…my face dirty, plain and dull.  As I got a good look at the young girl’s face that was looking at me, I noticed…her eyes were big out of fear; she was scared of me, probably because I was bigger than her.  Her eyes appeared shiny because she had been crying; I don’t know whether it was then, or now- the simplest answer was that I didn’t know the reason, the hardest thought to process was that I didn’t know why I wanted to know what made her cry…

"Lord of the Castle"

Where I am from the dirt is so sad. 

The rivers do not move and the wind is silent.  It is almost as if your in a place all alone, travelling aimlessly from one point to the next- with no meaningful destination.  I have been born of a wandering species, which have no purpose but to stand---stand very still on the sad dirt. 

And then.

Then one day—one day I had seen her.  With a mouth so refined it was almost as if her lips were sewn together to give it such a shape, as if her eyes were fantasized and as if her hands were sanded soft.  She was painted onto a canvas, made so perfect into a masterpiece.  She was different; she didn’t stand still on the dirt, she floated, like a soul lingering in a purgatory place.  I couldn’t reach her.  I wanted to touch her; just simply place my fingers and have them trail down her arm to grab hold of her hand and lace our fingers, intertwine them with each other as if they were meant to be so.  She was the pure dust particles that made a whole block of gold in every man’s eyes.  She seemed like a dream in the air.

I wanted to speak to her.  Admiring her took all day, as the days pass by so fast here.  I had lived on a star, so bright, called Teegarden.  It’s people were the slowest moving, yet our star was the fastest star, in the universe, in rotation.  I went off to the foreign grounds in search of sunflowers, to represent what I thought she appeared to be, the rays of the sun before it met the ocean.  I wanted to hand select them, perfection is the only thing I sought out in each one.  I didn’t want any flaws from the root to the stem, from the stem to the leaves, from the leaves to each pedal surrounding the bud inside.

The wind seemed to be whistling, which is so rare- even at night.  I approached the riverbank and saw ripples rising onto the surface of the water.  The dirt felt happy.  I felt it under my feet, its change.  I came closer to the river and saw an image in the water, that came to be a reflection from the sky and as I looked up stars grouped to form a shape.  The face was that of a lions looking down on me from the night sky.  I listened, for it was the only thing I could do, for I didn’t fear it.  The lion’s mouth opened wide as the sky became its mouth and throat and as it came closer I braced myself and forced down on one knee, was swallowed whole.

I couldn’t see anything, nor feel anything.  I could not hear- or was even sure if I was even breathing in anything.  I could only remember—my family—that girl, and all my desires abandoned with the outline of my body before it perished into the throat of a lion in the sky.

I was frozen in a time frame where I did not think.  I did not know what to think of.  Blank memories filled my head, yet I remembered that I still had memories from some time ago.  Longing for something to happen, it seemed like forever before I woke up.

I woke up.

Finally.

And when I woke, I was in an all white room, all whitely furnished, and not a speck of flaw tried to creep into the room.  The people themselves were dressed in the finest white- heavenly white almost, if there is such a thing.  And the faces kept getting closer to what I thought was my face- I was laying on my back.  The faces seemed full of “aw” and happiness, rosy salmon like cheeks and glistening almond shaped eyes of all colors.  I was picked up.

I was picked up because I was no longer me but a newborn child.  I was a child that I did not recognize as being myself to have maybe been a dream.  I found myself once again fading- but this time it was my eyes falling from the tiredness of a child, finding myself wandering into an innocent serenity of sleep.

My sixth birthday had come.  I had soon acknowledged that I was no longer in a dream, but had accepted that I had resurrected as someone else- someone greater-someone with a purpose, who will soon have to inherit the burden of my fathers’, to carry the troubles of my new world on my own back.  I was born of  the Egyptian Lion goddess, Sekhmet and the Egyptian Sun god, Ra.  Born on the 31^st of July I was my parents third child, but first and only son.  Born next to my cousin, the star, Denebola, the Nemean Lion I was destined to be great.

From time to time I had remembered the land that I was from, a long time ago.  A blurred image, but still there.  I was taken at the age of 19, and now am a 25-year-old man in a six-year-old body.  The chance of starting over and doing something other than standing still has come to me.  I lived in a castle so high off the ground that we literally slept amongst the clouds and stars.  I could see my cousins scattered all around me, watching over me as I peacefully dreamed of who I was to become.  I was of royal blood.

I had no real name.  It was royal tradition to be given a nickname until the next heir to the throne’s 18^th birthday.  I was called Quintilis, after the month that I was born.  My father’s had been Apollo, the Uplifter; his father was named Jupiter, the Creator.  I am from a line of chief gods, the supreme deity of the universe and all the worlds in it.  So high off the ground my family populated the heavens and earth.  My mother, a true lioness in many ways was from a true line of women as well.  Her mother, Hera, god of marriage and childbirth; her grandmother Clotho was one of the three Fates, she spun the thread of life and her two sisters measured the thread of life or cut it.  Such power in both sides that it was destined for me to strive, seek and to never allow anything or anyone to stop me from what is fate. 

The night before my 18^th birthday my mother appeared in my dreams, like she had done so many nights.  She would soothe me with her harmonious voice every time my dreams seemed to try and take a toll for the worst.  I never knew what was so bad in me ever once having a nightmare, what it would do to me.  That night, my mother had told me that my destiny was spun out for me centuries ago, and now born, I was to carry it out.  My name was to mean “Lord of the Castle”.

I woke up that morning with the light from the clouds whiteness upon my face and sheets.  I rose feeling like I had the power of a man in my hands and the walk of a king in my legs, as I stood six feet and two inches tall. As I walked toward my closet door  the air had smelled like pine, yet it wasn’t winter, and I heard my favorite melody being played outside my window.  Walking towards it, fairies appeared on the windowsill, playing with each other, not aware of me watching, enjoying their presence.  I looked out the window as they moved from my sill onto my shoulders, dancing and laughing in my ear.  Peering out, looking down, I saw her.  The same girl who was supposed to be twelve light years away.

“Leave her be, Quintilis”, the whisper of my mother’s voice in my ear had told me.  I turned to see if my mother was behind me, but like I figured, she was not- it was just her watching over me as she had done all my life.  Annoyed I turned back to see her, but she was not there where I had last seen her.  The way she left, her footprints had faded with the growth of new grass. 

I went on getting dressed for the ceremony that would change my life.  My undergarments were of the finest silks and my robe made out of the richest purple velvet.  I was to walk down the Golden Stairs, which consisted of 699 stairs, one step representing the kings before my father.  I will be that 700^th stair.  After the staircase I was to travel to the Golden Gates and cross the Lion’s Bridge to the Lions Den, also called the Lion’s temple, where the ceremony will take place. 

The whole kingdom will be in attendance.  Kings and queens, princes and princesses, gods and goddesses from far away kingdoms will also be there.  Everyone will be there to see me.

I started making my way to my door and as I opened it, as I expected, my mother appeared, in the purest gold gown.  She was so beautiful, like a woman that can only be possibly created in a perfect dream.  During the ceremony she was to pass on what had been in her family for thousands of years, her gold lion’s mane that my father wore.

“Are you ready, my son?”

“ I was born ready to change the world.  Wasn’t it you who said I was born with that destiny?”

My mother turned to walk away from me, “ask your ancestors for guidance, they will lead you down the best path.”

“And if I want to choose the path less traveled?”’

My mother turned back to face me with a worry in her eyes that I did not understand.  “Then that is a choice, you as a man, the child of a lion and the sun, shall make on your own, my son.”

From there I spoke to my mother through my thoughts, “who was she, mother?”

“She is the trouble that follows you, the nightmare that would creep into your dreams if I were not there to guard them.”

“Mother, she is from my past.  I don’t know how to explain it.”

“You don’t have to.  I know you were born elsewhere.  Reborn, you were made into what you were destined to be.  You will be King and you will have the strongest Queen by your side.”

“Queen…”

“Aglaia, one of the Three Graces.  She is the Splendor, full of magnificence…Now enough, my dear.  You are being waited on.  You will be late.”

With a deep breath taken, I place my hand in my pocket where I find my lion pendent that was given to me by my great grandmother, Clotho, on my 10^th birthday.  It was gold with a red mane.  I never knew why the mane was red.  She told me it would burn my hand and shine bright when it was close to my true love.  My mother thought of it nonsense and always told me not to pay my, supposedly insane, great grandmother, any mind—rest in peace, her old sold that has now travelled to the other world.

I started going down the Golden Stairs, seeing people rushing, moving so fast at the bottom.  I came down at a slow pace.  I wanted to enjoy and take in my last minutes of being a teenager for they would disappear the moment I walked through the Lion’s Den.  I started thinking about that girl again as I felt as if I were floating down the stairs now at a faster pace.  I wanted to see her again, wanted to know her name-what was so bad about her.

I found myself at the opposite end of the Golden Bridge, then I saw her again.  She looked at me this  time.   Her face seemed blank, but not her eyes.  She smiled and acknowledged my prescence with her eyes.  She went inside when a man appeared next to her and rushed her inside.  I quickly moved across the bridge when my mother then appeared.

“Quintilis!”

“I’m here, mother.”

“Are you really?  I said leave her.  She is taken and she is not the one for you.  Do not start off being a stubborn king.”

I made my way inside where the temple was filled with magnificence.  Everyone was of great importance. 

I saw my father at the alter looking at me with great expectations in mind.  I couldn’t stare away from his gaze.  My mother appeared next to him.  As everyone seated themselves, the birds began to sing and the harps, the violins and the piano had started to play.  I walked down the aisle still holding my parents’ gaze.  As I was about to go up the alter I felt a stare.  Not everyone else’s stare, but one distinct stare, and I knew it was hers.  I almost paused, but didn’t want my mother to notice so I kept walking towards them, up the alter.

“Hello, Quintilis,” she spoke to me in my thoughts.

“You speak to me in my mind,” for I thought only my mother was able to do that.

“Yes.  Will you meet me at the back of the temple when the ceremony has finished?”

“I will meet you there…what is your name?”

“Minerva.”

As I reached the top of the alter everyone stood up.  We all had faced the crowd.

“My son, Quintilis, today you shall become a man.  I shall step down as you rightfully take my place as king.  You are to become the lord of the castle.  You shall be the golden light to lead us. “  My father places his crown upon my head and kisses my forehead, “You are the true heir to the throne, a blessing of pure gold.”

As my mother took off my fathers lion pelt from his back and placed it on mine, she announced my name.  “From this day, you will no longer be Quintilis, but Karlon, lord of the castle, son of Ra and Sekhmet.”

Everyone applauded and flower pedals fell from the ceiling and fairies sprinkled their pixie dust all around.  As everyone stared at me, all I could do was stare at the girl who called herself, Minerva.  She was beautiful and her eyes told me that she thought the same of me.  My hand slid into the pockets of my robe and it was then that I felt the burning of the lion’s mane on my pendant and I quickly pulled my hand away from it.  My great grandmother was telling me what I already knew from the day I first laid eyes on her, the very first time, in Teegarden.

As everyone was mingling and talking to my parents I made my way through everyone and snuck out the back.  As I came out, the sun shone bright on my face, and then I saw her.  She was sitting on a bench made of pine wood.  She looked more radient than the Sun.

“Who are you?” I said in the softest, most quietest voice.

“I am Minerva, I am a guardian goddess.  Yours.  I am the daughter of Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom and Vulcan, the smith magician.”

“Mine?  I do not understand.”

“I am the one your mother protects you from…in your dreams.  When you were taken from Teegarden, I followed you and she knew this.  Your mother never knew I was to guard you always; she thought I was there to harm you, but it is a simple misunderstanding.”

“How can I trust you?”

“Listen to the racing of your heart and look into my eyes...and tell me what you see.”

As I sat next to her I found my heart begin to race.  It felt so heavy that my heart felt as if it were stretching itself in my chest.  As I looked into her eyes, her pupils began to sink deeper and deeper with me lost in them.  Her eyes were of a maple tree color.  The sincerity in her eyes startled me, but what I saw was love.  Seeing that I felt her hand reach into my pocket where my pendent was.  The mane was on fire, yet it did not burn her hand.

“Give me your hand, Karlon.”  As I gave her my hand we both held the pendant and to my surprise it did not burn me like it usually did.  “ I am to protect you from harm.  While doing so, I had fallen in love with you.  I have loved you in your dreams, when you take long walks in the garden and during your most cherished lonely moments.  I have always been there, waiting for you to, once again, find me and love me, as I, love you.”

I was almost speechless.  I didn’t want to loose her again and wanted the right words to come out.

“I did not see you, but I don’t believe that I ever stopped loving you when there was not a day that I did not think of you.”

“I hope not to be blind for too long- I want to see you, so you can love me without me being blindfolded.”

I had then noticed that she could not see.

“But…”

“I know.  Remember, my love, I am a goddess.  My senses are greater than any.  I am destined to guard you, so in doing so I must know who you are.  The man who loves me like no other shall be the one to make me se again, with just one kiss.”

“Is that man me?”

“Only you can answer that.”

With that said,  I held her hands in mine and as I looked at her I saw that she had her eyes closed.  She looked as if she were waiting for me all her life, and there I realized, as I kissed her—I was waiting for her all of mine.

"A Family of Two:Journal Entries of A Woman Lost"

**This is a short story that I have been working on for a few months.  I am not finished with it yet, but it is a work in progress that I wanted to share; this is just a sneak peek (I have changed the language and format as you will notice, than from how I normally speak, I gave it a much softer, older tone.  This is the first time I have ever done this and hope that you like it.  It takes place in the 1860s, in Old New York)**

My father always criticized me for being too cautious of other people.  My response was always simply, "Why shouldn't I ever be cautious of those who are more than likely to be the ones who will influence my actions?"  I always tended to find my father's questions- typically annoying, actually very opposite of my mother's questions which were always a bit more challenging.  My father tended to bore me with his ignorance. Maybe it was because he always questioned a woman's mind and thought of it to not be as ahead as a mans, when in reality, we are much smarter than any incompetent man... the only difference is, we don't have to boast about it every five minutes.  We are more humble, at least most of us women are.  You see, my father always asked me questions that I believed only flew out of his mouth, simply for the hell of it, or just because he knew he would irritate my nerves by asking me the same questions, simply revised every time.  "Simply".  That was the word.  The adjective, 'simple' was what described my father; he was simple to the point that he was boring.

Now, don't, for a mere second, confuse this talk as me degrading my father in any way, for I adore that man.  I had loved him, still love him and will always love him.  He's still alive now- well barely.  As I think of it, he's not really living after all.  After my mother became sick- sick of him, left him, took from him, he became quite silent.  He barely spoke a word to us.  To us- there were seven of us by the way.  Adam passed last Spring and Rose passed back in January.  Father refused to attend either one of his children's funeral, only because he believed that children should never die before their parents.  Mom showed, even though it was painful, she thought at least one parent should be present, and then of course they were her children, she brought them into this world, but did not expect to see them leave it.  I remember how he didn't sleep for weeks at a time. I think it was just haunting him.  I wouldn't have have been surprised if he blamed himself, or maybe he just felt that he could have spent more time catering to us instead of trying so hard to get mom back; it was clear that she was never coming back to him.  He wouldn't stop crying and refused to eat after their passing.  They were actually mother's favorites, and even though they left him when she left, they never turned their back on him.  They always came to visit on the weekends and never treated him any differently.  They were his only memories of mom.

I always wondered what he would think of me, if I were to die before him I mean.  I'm his favortie, but would he, also, not attend my funeral if I were to die before him?  What would his reaction be like?  He's suicidal you know.  He's to be kept under a watchful eye at all times.  There were times when I blamed his actions for not being able to find a husband and have a family of my own.  I have become a loner, simply because I chose to tend to my father's needs, but who will tend to mine?  After my father is gone, what will I do?  Father sometimes reminds me of a chimpanzee.  He keeps still until something, a tragedy most likely, happens and kicks into his brain.  He'll start jumping all over the place searching for something, someway to rid himself of the misery that flows through his body.

"Let the old man drown himself in an overdose.  I'll happily tell everyone it was an accident, even though everybody knows he's a weak bastard who's suicidal."  I never spoke to Peter after that, at least no longer than a minute when it was to answer or to tell him something regarding the family.  He said that six years ago after mom left.  Peter was always siding with mom and thought of my dad as a mere, less than mediocre, husband and father.  When mom left, Peter left with her, never looking back to see the look on his own father's face.  Father never made it easy for Peter, he was the oldest and one day father hoped that he would follow in his footsteps in becoming a doctor.  Being quite the opposite, Peter refused to be anything like our father.  

Peter always thought he was born a man, thought he skipped puberty all together.  Anyway, he was just a pain and not worth dealing with.  He was definitely not my favorite brother but unfortunately, my brother all the same.  I remember when I was younger, how badly I wished that we bonded like other siblings. The Petersons siblings had a really close bond with one another, along with the Andersons and the Whitmans; then I grew older and knew that there was no way that I could bond with a man as arrogant, none the less, ignorant as Peter.  Even though he was my blood I've never seen such a thing where blood no longer mattered.