My brother died a month ago. nosleep

My brother passed away about a month ago.

It was unexpected. A daytime car accident, not even alcohol-involved, and he was gone. I took it poorly, but my parents fell apart. I decided to take some time from work to move back to the other side of the state to help them. I quickly realized that it was a lot easier said than done, and nothing made me feel more helpless than sitting there silently while they cried, night after night, day after day. I made sure that they at least ate some food, and strategically moved most of the liquor bottles from the house. I handled a few small things, funeral arrangements, turning off his cable and water, other bullshit. Outside of that, I was absolutely worthless.

When we were contacted to clean out his house, I jumped at the opportunity. I felt sort of shitty by how relieved I felt to have an excuse to leave my parents for a few hours a day, but I’d never been good with emotions. I handled things the good ol’ fashioned Irish way- press everything deep, deep down, throw myself into my work, and drink myself to bed whenever the emotions wanted to rear their ugly head. It wasn’t the healthiest method, but it mostly worked, and it was all I knew how to do. It hadn’t really hit me that he was gone, and I may be an idiot but I knew that there was a good chance I would break down at his place. I was ready, though. I got a nice bottle of his favorite bourbon and figured I would spent the first few hours self-medicating and reminiscing.

His house was one of those old farm houses a sort drive from Toledo. It was old enough to have smaller doors and a large, wide porch. I silently cursed myself for never finding time to visit him since he’d moved here. I was busy, he was busy, and at the end of the day everybody’s just an asshole with regrets. When I pulled into the driveway I noticed he had been doing pretty good for himself. The place was really well kept up, with the exception of the out of control grass. The house itself had a fresh coat of paint and looked neat and trim in the evening sun. I walked up to the door, flipping through the keys that his landlord had given me. My brother had been working at a high school teaching drama. I’m pretty sure I was giving him a hard time about it the last time we talked on the phone. Jesus. The lights inside worked fine and I found two nice bourbon glasses in the kitchen cabinet, into which I poured two generous drinks. I tried to think of something to say out loud but nothing sounded right, so I ended up eyeballing the ground guiltily while shooting the whole glass. I was a shit brother, all in all. I poured another for myself and slowly walked around the house. I was surprised by how tidy everything was: he really had come a long way from the slobby little brother I knew. He had pictures on the wall of him happy, him with his kids on stage, him building sets for shows. It was weird seeing him as an adult, he was always younger in my mind.

Even his bedroom was impeccable. His clothes were folded in his drawers with military precision, and the only thing out even slightly out of place was a book he had been reading on his nightstand.

My glass empty again, I sighed and returned to the kitchen. I unplugged the refrigerator, braced myself, and began emptying the fridge into a trash bag, trying to breathe as little as possible. He still had containers of food for the remainder of the week inside, labeled with each day. I might have had a little more to drink.

After I walked to the living room, looking at the pictures again. Here was a happy man, a man living a life that I didn’t know. It didn’t seem right how little we had talked, how we had never made time for each other in our lives. There were burned DVDs in jewel cases neatly stacked by his TV. Each had a label on them. Spring Special, 2014. Fiddler, Fall 2015. Peter Pan, Winter 2014. There had to be thirty of them. He was so proud of his work. Feeling nostalgic, or remorse, or drunk, I turned the TV on opened the DVD player. There was already a DVD inside. Autumn, 2015. I closed the player and hit play.

As much as my brother loved theater, he had never been great at electronics. The camera was facing a gray brick wall, out of focus. I chuckled silently and took another sip.

The camera jerked on its tripod and the auto-focus struggled to catch up. I could make out a silhouette on a chair. The focus finally correctly. There was a small girl on a table. A man walked into the frame, holding a small three-pound sledgehammer. I could only see the torso, due to the spectacularly bad tripod setup. The man stretched slightly, and then began smashing the child with the hammer. He began at the extremities, working his was inward. The girl screamed silently, the audio disabled either intentionally or not. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. The hits continued, sometimes spattering the gray brick wall behind it with blood and viscera. I flinched when the hammer finally hit the young girl’s head. Her body spasmed and twitched for what felt like an eternity. The shreds of her arm flailed. The disc stopped.

I threw up, probably ruining the impeccable carpeting. I stared at the now-blank TV. I needed a drink, but at some point I had dropped my glass. It felt unreal. It was probably a side-project? Right? Some off-Broadway torture-porn one-act. Make-up artists these days had really come a long way.

I wasn’t convincing myself.

I walked outside, grabbing the bottle on the way out. I pressed my head against the clean white column on the patio. I couldn’t think. My ears were buzzing, and nothing felt right. I couldn’t think. My eyes focused on the grass. There was a problem I could fix. Muscle memory, repetition. Work. Move your body until your brain works.

The mower was in the shed. It had gas and started up fine. The back of my mind noticed the spark plugs were new. It fired right up.

The guy in the video, that could have been my brother. Hell, it could have been anyone. It could have been staged. Maybe it was some viral marketing for a horror movie. I pushed the mower, sweating slightly more from the heat of the day.

If I watched another DVD I’d know for sure. It would probably just be a bunch of shitty high school kids in shitty costumes doing a shitty play. Probably. But I couldn’t chance another DVD being another one like that. I don’t think my brain could handle it.

The grass was so long I had to push the mower, back up, and run over the same spot again so it wouldn’t choke. My brain raced. Her twitches. The way her eye popped when the hammer struck her head. It didn’t seem fake.

I hadn’t realized that I had mowed most of the lawn until the mower struck something. I let it die. There was a storm door on the side of the farmhouse. There was a padlock on the outside. I felt dizzy. On autopilot, my hands pulled the keys from my pocket and opened the lock. It was well-oiled and opened without a problem. I pulled the storm door open, numb. There were scratches on the inside of the door. Most of a fingernail was sticking out from one of them.

I slowly walked down the steps, wanting to be wrong. At the bottom was something small, covered in blankets. It didn’t move. It had been a girl, but that was weeks ago. Before my brother had never returned from work. It was in a cell, a neat, well-organized cell. It was freshly painted, had a modest toilet, utility sink. Dry goods were stacked on shelves across the far wall. There was no lack of food. My brother was good at taking care of his things.

I slid to the ground, staring blankly ahead of me. I should call the cops.

I had done so little to help my parents with my brothers death. I just took care of some of the arrangements, turning off his utilities, his water.

Submitted September 24, 2016 at 04:44AM by slamsen http://ift.tt/2ctTGzK nosleep