Water. Stream. Fall and crook.
Sea, rain and babbling brook.
Ive read of you in tale and book
But never thought of what you've took.
A leaf that falls into your hands;
I'll no not where again it lands.
And that creature no-one understands,
Washed up on the yellow beaches sands.
But one thing of you, I can justly declare
There is nothing of more beauty that I dares' t compare.
Tuesday, 15 October 2013
Monday, 14 October 2013
Bells.
I doubt you’ve ever met a narrator with as little consequence as I maintain, so I’ll make it clear; prepare yourself for disappointment. I have no exciting narrative or horrific past to divulge, simply an account of one day; the day that I discovered love, experienced hate and murdered my brother.
Patience readers, I feel your judgement of me may be built on your limited knowledge of the event and therefore too brash. I remind you that you know nothing of my brother, his ways and his temper; therefore, let me tell you of him truthfully. We were born to our mother Carol Ray as identical twins in the early days of December 1995 and spent a secluded childhood in one another’s companionship without need for alternative company. These days I can faithfully declare as some of the fondest days of my existence, the strength of our bond seemed impenetrable and too often we were considered as one mind. As we moved through primary education to secondary the blemishes in our unity forced through and a conflict in interests drew us apart; he took pleasure in study, I found it, as most young men do, in girls. The unruly competition between his passion for the mind and my desires of the body became unstoppable and in the months leading up to my brother’s death I found his company intolerable and his morals frustrating. Of course, everyone praised him for his academic achievements and I soon found myself in the shadows of his accomplishments, only gaining the attention I yearned for by fighting or indulging in alcohol and cannabis. My popularity had been replaced by his solitude and he basked in all the attention I once enjoyed. On the 20th May this year, my patience relented, anger surpassed reason and a wild passion consumed me. I was tired of seclusion and bored of intimidation; his evident impersonation of who I once was eradicated my loyalty and abolished sanity. It had been decided that on this day, when the bells had silenced, he would be silenced too.
The first bell of the day rang at 8:30. This is the bell we all dread the most; the reminder that the school day has only just begun and hours must pass before we can retreat into darkness and ignore the troubles of it. For my brother and I, this bell meant that double physics was about to begin and 2 hours of torment lay ahead. I couldn’t escape my brother, even at school, the unfortunate union of the same surname ensured that I would never be able to escape his company; though this company was never welcomed and in turn, never acknowledged. We spent hours sitting on opposite sides of a classroom wishing hateful thoughts upon each other through glares and whispers from close-by students would drift around the room. It was these whispers that bear the blame of my brother’s death, for there is only so much one boy can ignore. The whispers grew from a subtle undertone of pathetic insults to ceaseless abuse but none had affected me so much as what I had heard that day in double physics – ‘Daniel would fucking kill him in a fight, I’m surprised he hasn’t yet, living with a bastard like that’. Daniel Ray, that’s my brother, so it doesn’t take a genius to work out who ‘he’ was. I knew that our relationship was unhinged but the extremity of it had never been as prominent as the hatred that rang through those words. My brother now wore the title of my enemy and what was a petty sibling rivalry turned into a competition of survival. If my brother wanted to fight, we would fight, he would lose and I would reclaim my former position that he stole from me. So readers, as you can see, the fate that awaited my brother was of his own accord. In a battle for survival, can you honestly say you wouldn’t have acted as I did?
12:30, that bell again; this time with more serious consequences. It had been nearly 2 years since Daniel and I had spent the dinner break in mutual company. This precious hour had been the only chance of escape I’d been given but today it offered me a more permanent escape in exchange for those minutes that before I considered so sacred to me. The time offered me a perfect opportunity to end my misfortune and begin his. I wanted him to feel the humiliation and pain that I’d felt for the last two years. It was his turn to suffer the degradation, to understand the pressure he’d put on the very reason for my being. I’d lost everything and he deserved nothing. We’d arranged to meet at the school’s car-park, a hectic place whenever the dinner bell rang and the perfect place for my brother’s public disgrace. Jostling groups of high school students gathered to kick a ball around or update their Facebook status and in a moment of reflection I recalled spending a lot of time in the last two years finding entertainment in the care-free nature of the children. The car-park was regularly full of activity and rarely free of mishap but today it held a sickening sense of foreboding and disorder. As Daniel approached, sniggering at some predictably cliché joke directed from one of his many followers, I caught a glimpse of the brother I once knew and loved in his laughter. That laughter I heard so many times before and treasured as the foundations of the memories we shared together. ‘Don’t do it to yourself Daniel, you’re better than this’; then no more words passed between us. A claustrophobic silence disturbed only by the single strike of a bell. A bell that I did not recognize. The bell that haunts me. The bell that prompted my brother’s death.
I warn you readers, that the following events are not for the fainthearted, for my brothers murder can be described as nothing more than brutal yet necessary. I fail to remember how it began - It’s intriguing how the mind can alter your perceptions and modify your memory. Though the memory of my brother’s resistance is one I cannot seem to repress. Even within the closing moments of his existence, Daniel faced me with as much love and loyalty as he had dedicated to me within our childhood. His devotion I saw as weakness and his simplicity still amuses me. Finally everyone would see how pathetic my brother was, that he deserved to be hurt. My brother had been distracted by the very emotion that I’d considered absent from our youth, love. This moment of weakness presented me with an opportunity I adored and with a smile on my face I withdrew a single crafted blade from my pocket. With each cut a sense of satisfaction overwhelmed me and encouraged my actions. I cut deeper and deeper, laughing with each laceration as a river of red cascaded down my arms from his wounds and submerged my hands.
The need to continue this recollection now appears redundant, as my dear readers, I fear that you are already too familiarly acquainted with my mind to unearth a false conclusion. I’d achieved my freedom. My brother is lost to the world, as if he never existed and I am greeted with more attention than I ever before received. My freedom relies on the ignorance of others to the crime and whispers of suicide attempts and mental illness replace accusations of murder. I now wear the title of schizophrenic rather than murderer, but don’t be fooled; I’d wear any title to maintain my freedom. This title is only a mask I wear to conceal my crime. My brother is gone, I have survived and every day the bells will ring and our story will be retold.
Patience readers, I feel your judgement of me may be built on your limited knowledge of the event and therefore too brash. I remind you that you know nothing of my brother, his ways and his temper; therefore, let me tell you of him truthfully. We were born to our mother Carol Ray as identical twins in the early days of December 1995 and spent a secluded childhood in one another’s companionship without need for alternative company. These days I can faithfully declare as some of the fondest days of my existence, the strength of our bond seemed impenetrable and too often we were considered as one mind. As we moved through primary education to secondary the blemishes in our unity forced through and a conflict in interests drew us apart; he took pleasure in study, I found it, as most young men do, in girls. The unruly competition between his passion for the mind and my desires of the body became unstoppable and in the months leading up to my brother’s death I found his company intolerable and his morals frustrating. Of course, everyone praised him for his academic achievements and I soon found myself in the shadows of his accomplishments, only gaining the attention I yearned for by fighting or indulging in alcohol and cannabis. My popularity had been replaced by his solitude and he basked in all the attention I once enjoyed. On the 20th May this year, my patience relented, anger surpassed reason and a wild passion consumed me. I was tired of seclusion and bored of intimidation; his evident impersonation of who I once was eradicated my loyalty and abolished sanity. It had been decided that on this day, when the bells had silenced, he would be silenced too.
The first bell of the day rang at 8:30. This is the bell we all dread the most; the reminder that the school day has only just begun and hours must pass before we can retreat into darkness and ignore the troubles of it. For my brother and I, this bell meant that double physics was about to begin and 2 hours of torment lay ahead. I couldn’t escape my brother, even at school, the unfortunate union of the same surname ensured that I would never be able to escape his company; though this company was never welcomed and in turn, never acknowledged. We spent hours sitting on opposite sides of a classroom wishing hateful thoughts upon each other through glares and whispers from close-by students would drift around the room. It was these whispers that bear the blame of my brother’s death, for there is only so much one boy can ignore. The whispers grew from a subtle undertone of pathetic insults to ceaseless abuse but none had affected me so much as what I had heard that day in double physics – ‘Daniel would fucking kill him in a fight, I’m surprised he hasn’t yet, living with a bastard like that’. Daniel Ray, that’s my brother, so it doesn’t take a genius to work out who ‘he’ was. I knew that our relationship was unhinged but the extremity of it had never been as prominent as the hatred that rang through those words. My brother now wore the title of my enemy and what was a petty sibling rivalry turned into a competition of survival. If my brother wanted to fight, we would fight, he would lose and I would reclaim my former position that he stole from me. So readers, as you can see, the fate that awaited my brother was of his own accord. In a battle for survival, can you honestly say you wouldn’t have acted as I did?
12:30, that bell again; this time with more serious consequences. It had been nearly 2 years since Daniel and I had spent the dinner break in mutual company. This precious hour had been the only chance of escape I’d been given but today it offered me a more permanent escape in exchange for those minutes that before I considered so sacred to me. The time offered me a perfect opportunity to end my misfortune and begin his. I wanted him to feel the humiliation and pain that I’d felt for the last two years. It was his turn to suffer the degradation, to understand the pressure he’d put on the very reason for my being. I’d lost everything and he deserved nothing. We’d arranged to meet at the school’s car-park, a hectic place whenever the dinner bell rang and the perfect place for my brother’s public disgrace. Jostling groups of high school students gathered to kick a ball around or update their Facebook status and in a moment of reflection I recalled spending a lot of time in the last two years finding entertainment in the care-free nature of the children. The car-park was regularly full of activity and rarely free of mishap but today it held a sickening sense of foreboding and disorder. As Daniel approached, sniggering at some predictably cliché joke directed from one of his many followers, I caught a glimpse of the brother I once knew and loved in his laughter. That laughter I heard so many times before and treasured as the foundations of the memories we shared together. ‘Don’t do it to yourself Daniel, you’re better than this’; then no more words passed between us. A claustrophobic silence disturbed only by the single strike of a bell. A bell that I did not recognize. The bell that haunts me. The bell that prompted my brother’s death.
I warn you readers, that the following events are not for the fainthearted, for my brothers murder can be described as nothing more than brutal yet necessary. I fail to remember how it began - It’s intriguing how the mind can alter your perceptions and modify your memory. Though the memory of my brother’s resistance is one I cannot seem to repress. Even within the closing moments of his existence, Daniel faced me with as much love and loyalty as he had dedicated to me within our childhood. His devotion I saw as weakness and his simplicity still amuses me. Finally everyone would see how pathetic my brother was, that he deserved to be hurt. My brother had been distracted by the very emotion that I’d considered absent from our youth, love. This moment of weakness presented me with an opportunity I adored and with a smile on my face I withdrew a single crafted blade from my pocket. With each cut a sense of satisfaction overwhelmed me and encouraged my actions. I cut deeper and deeper, laughing with each laceration as a river of red cascaded down my arms from his wounds and submerged my hands.
The need to continue this recollection now appears redundant, as my dear readers, I fear that you are already too familiarly acquainted with my mind to unearth a false conclusion. I’d achieved my freedom. My brother is lost to the world, as if he never existed and I am greeted with more attention than I ever before received. My freedom relies on the ignorance of others to the crime and whispers of suicide attempts and mental illness replace accusations of murder. I now wear the title of schizophrenic rather than murderer, but don’t be fooled; I’d wear any title to maintain my freedom. This title is only a mask I wear to conceal my crime. My brother is gone, I have survived and every day the bells will ring and our story will be retold.
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