Eighteen seventy-four by Rory Alexander, Year 13
opened his mouth to eat, I would swear I saw a gap in his teeth. A week later, the butcher knocked on our front door, calling upon my father. His neck bore a thick metal crucifix, the raggedy, shirtless man hanging upon it wrapped in the too-long chains of the pendant. My father told us to stay inside and to wash the dishes, and as I attacked the thick patina with which they were encrusted, a great snapping explosion rang through the empty village square, and my brother’s usually hearty body seemed to reel from the desecrated silence. The plate in his hands fell to the floor and fractured. He emitted a quiet, wheezing moan that turned into a sob, and I left the room. The next morning, I found my brother under the balcony. His feet were not touching the ground. I ran to my father’s arms and sobbed into his chest while he patted my back and stared distantly across the room at nothing in particular, a strange expression haunting his face. “Why is my he dead? Why did he do that to himself?” I bawled, my face swollen and red and stained with tears. “Because God didn’t love him no more.” His voice was shaky. He was whispering. “But daddy, I did. I loved him.” And in that mo- ment my father raised his hand, and I saw the hand of God reaching out to touch my face. And it broke my jaw. ◎
I recall the first time I saw my brother kissing another man. The fall was young and with it came trees aflame with rich yellows and oranges, and their branches whispered and consorted amongst themselves. I remember clearly the weight of the door and how it grunted as I pushed it open and the feeling of dew seeping into the seams of my boots and my chubby fingers picking insects off leaves and imagining them to be my friends. And I remember stum- bling across a fallen co- nifer, upon which my brother was cupping the face of the butcher’s boy, as my mother cupped mine. I don’t believe I reacted, or truly under- stood. He didn’t par- ticularly panic, nor did he exhibit any degree of shame. Not then, at least. He rose, his hand tracing across the other boy’s as he did, and he took mine instead, leading me in- doors. He warmed up leftover stew from the night before and served it to me in a tin bowl that he warned me not to touch, as it was very hot. I ate in silence, as did he. Another fall and a warm, delicate spring passed me by, and I had learnt to swim and to clean a gun and to cook my own dinner when my father was late back from hunting and my brother was still out. My father told me with what I recall to be a tone of vehemence that, yes, the boy was indeed working. “Easy. A little to the right. There. Fire.” Click. My father sniffed. “Again.” Click. He took it from me
with rough, marred hands, inspected the chamber and grunted. “Take the rifle inside. Your brother will fix it.” The stairs had been replaced that year, and their wooden shoulders yawned, bearing the load of my footfall, and the most venerable planks, which had not yet aged and rotted and been replaced,
yelped shrilly, as did the hinge of my brother’s bedroom door, and the mattress upon which he was most decidedly not sleeping. By the time my brother was clothed and the butcher’s son had escaped through the window, my father was upstairs, having heard my brother’s bellowing. My uncle’s house was a dreary place. He had broken down slowly since he had been relieved of duty, and to look into his eyes and to know that he was look- ing back into yours with- out a veil of alcohol was a rarity. He didn’t have a spare room, and I was
made to sleep on his floor, with the bottles and their faded labels and the weary carpet and all the insects and rat droppings within its forested surface, while my father disciplined my brother. He had made it very clear that my brother was all that boy was. Not his son. When I returned home, there was something dead and festering that hung in the air every dinner. My brother would wince as he sank gingerly into his chair while my father’s glare bored into the very centre of his head. Sometimes when he
Artwork by Daniel Burckle (Year 12)
CREATIVE WRITING
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THE ALLEYNIAN 713
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