My Brother's Keeper

The only reason why I’m telling you this is because someone made the ultimate sacrifice.

A few years ago he found me. He said he was lost and I believed him. Yet I couldn’t trust my own eyes. My mother never told me, why would she hide him after all these years... because, she never knew. We decided not to ask, so we never had any answers. He was running away from his past, especially from the family who adopted him. In search of something “real”, as he told me, he was tracing back his origins, wanting to know more about himself. It took him two years to find out what I had to realize a numb 30 seconds from the moment he was standing in front of me. A brother, a twin brother.

For the first couple of weeks I had difficulties figuring out how to deal having a doppelganger around my neck. It was bizarre, living in a room with a stranger wearing your visage, a damned moving mirror. But I felt it was something new for him too.

We were similar, but different. He preferred to be alone and despised “the society”. He idolized people who live on their own, like the Spartans with their simplicity and strict self discipline. I understood him, but I’m a loner simply because I have a hard time finding people I can relate to. I appreciate good music of any kind, where the roaring of a high performing engine is music to his ears. He’s dream was to own a Ferrari Testarossa, in red of course.  He was more of an easy going person with a hint of an “l’etat, c’est moi” syndrome. He kept on mocking me because I was still a virgin, but I was smarter than him and he knew that. We had different point of views, and agreed at best when we shared our sarcasms. After hours of Q&A we became close, like brothers, and it didn’t matter anymore where he came from.

At a point in time we began to think seriously about our newly acquired selves, but it was me who worried more about him, there where times I felt less a brother, but his parent. He didn’t want to let anyone know about him, there was no place for him to go anyway. I was his only family, he once told me, and it was enough for him that I exist.

I had classes to attend, and he didn’t mind staying at the apartment everyday. We then figured that he could try going out as me. All he had to do is using my glasses instead of his contact lenses. But the physical appearance was the only easy part.

“It’s the glasses that make you look smart, now don’t make a fool out of me”, I joked half seriously. I had to teach him everything about me, what I eat for lunch, how I talk, get him familiarized with the people I communicate on a regular basis and how I am related to them. But no one really would notice the switch, being a loner worked for us, and we agreed to keep up that image. My habits and routines became his, it was like wearing a mask for him, and he liked it that way. It gave me the creeps at first, he soon played my role almost too perfectly.

Time passed and the switch became regular. Together we developed ideas that would solve or prevent problems that would come our way and may uncover our double life. We had to think ahead and after each switch every single occurrence must be known to the other, the information accumulated to the point that we had difficulties keeping them in mind, so we wrote them down, and lead to the idea of a journal, a mutual diary.

At any cost we would not be allowed to be seen together, outside or inside. When one did the switch, the other must stay in the apartment. Disguise crossed our minds but it was not realistic and it was way too risky.

There were times when my then girlfriend planned to stay with me for her vacations. I could share my life, but not my girlfriend. He said I shouldn’t worry, and he would handle it on his own. He packed his things and was gone. But I did worry each day. He shaved his hair short and stayed somewhere outside the city where no one knew me, he told me afterwards. And it worked, more than once.

Daily life became ordinary, boring at times that we began to test people with silly remarks which would actually give hints to our secret. When my brother would receive comments like “you look like a good person”. He would reply, “It’s just the glasses.” And they would interpret it as an amusing answer. Or if someone would ask me about my nationality I would say that I was a dual citizen with the double entendre on my mind. My brother had a short temper he hardly could control, where I’m the one with patience, but we would simply say that I was moody. People never did bother to notice, the illusion was perfect with the truth right in front of their eyes. But I knew already that this twofold life would not work out forever.

The time came I had no choice but to move to another city, and staying together was impossible without exposing himself, since I would live with my father and his family. Eventually, I had to leave, and he stayed until we figured something out.

I visited him whenever I could, mostly over the weekends when I didn’t have any classes. My cover up was having a long-distance girlfriend, or visiting old friends. And sometimes he would come over here, stay in some cheap pension outside the city, we couldn’t do the switch, because he was keeping his hair short, but it didn’t matter since I was new here and no one knew me yet. I told him that it would not really work out unless he would show himself. His immaturity pushed me to the limit of my patience, and more than often we ended up arguing and hating each other.

“What do you want with your own life??” I kept on pushing him. And the last time we fought he shared that when he found out, as a fourteen year old boy, that he was adopted, he wanted to kill himself. He hated his family, and realizing it was not even his own after all, he never wanted to exist. Finding me gave him something real, at least once in his life and it was enough for him. He said I shouldn’t worry, and packed his things. I told him not to do what he had in mind, and threaten him that I would do the same. He knew I was bluffing and was gone anyway.

Weeks passed without hearing something from him. I broke up with my girlfriend from where he lived with the reason that I needed some time alone to find myself, which came closest to the truth. I couldn’t find a start where to search for him, I knew if he would want me to find him he would let me know. All I could do is prepare for the worst.

Weeks became months, and I troubled about him everyday. But Faith came and I met someone. It was the right time to share some company and she helped me to keep my mind from my worries for a while. I started to like her.

Then on a Friday night I got a message with an address outside the city and that I needed to be there tomorrow or the secret would be uncovered, I couldn’t care less about the secret. Hearing from him after so long, I was upset and relieved at the same time. He informed me at night, because he knew I couldn’t get anywhere at these late times since I had to commute, so I had to wait till morning.

As agreed I went to the address and I found my brother, with a note. It is still unbearable for me to write this down. I couldn’t look at him for long and I didn’t know if I should cry or just get out. But I just stood there senseless. A dead body is far from what you see on television and movies. And fuck he was my brother... The note asked me to do the hardest thing I ever had to, and it still hunts me. It simply said “If you respect me, bury me here.”

Everyday I tried to compose myself not to break down. Questions of guilt wriggled in my head and it was hard to keep it all by myself. I couldn’t let anyone see me like this, but with a little help by faith made it easier to give an answer if ever someone happens to see me having a bad moment. The girl I started to like a few months ago, decided to leave me three days after my brother’s death, which was a perfect cover up, plus summer holidays was near, so I didn’t have to face people. I couldn’t ask for something better, or did my brother just waited for the right moment?

I still think of him a lot, and I’m getting better. He wanted me to keep our secret and live MY life, I do my best. But nothing really matters, I shouldn’t care if people say this story is fake or stamp me as crazy, I accept my mark of Cain. The best way to keep a secret is not to hide it and let it become an illusion, or does it just look like one? Even if someone would find a shred of evidence, it is still harder to prove that it’s real.

And the only reason why I’m telling you this is because someone made the ultimate sacrifice. A sacrifice that gave back my life by taking his, but I can’t grant his wish me to live mine, because I want to do what he himself never could, to live his.

(sj)


(h)

And As God asked Cain where his brother was, Cain responded: “I know not; Am I my Brother’s keeper?” And God said “what hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.” the Lord put a mark upon him so that he would be identified as the killer of his brother but would also be protected in his wanderings. Cain is cursed, always to be a fugitive and wanderer in the earth.

Comments

[Hil]

wow, such an incredible story...i'm sorry about your brother....i hope you don't blame yourself for what happened...

[cAnDyLiciOus]

nice... ^_^

[janet]

hi sean..wat a nice story..don't blame urself..maybe,theres a reason...

[Evanna C]

how old is ur brother wen he died?