Animalistic Existence

Every time I stare at the mirror, I see the reflection of my dead brother. The lips, the hair, and even the clothes resemble him so much that I myself don’t recognize the person I’m looking at anymore. It’s cruel how a dead person has claimed its existence on a living being. If you have never believed in ghosts, then just looking at me would convince any sane person otherwise.

I do not exist anymore.

My brother is the one living in my stead. “I” died the day the real Keith Greens body was buried and his name was engraved in the memorial stone. It might as well have been my former self buried in that cemetery, because by now even my name has no existence anymore.
I never valued names before. Ah, how naivety and ignorance do cruelly hide the truths of the world. Is it not strange how much we humans love to name things? New or old, it doesn’t matter because soon they will have their own names to claim; even objects have names. Yet here I am claiming the name of a man who has been dead for five years already.

Of course, my current name is Keith Green. How that happened you might ask?

Well this did begin with our family traditions and legacy. When people say “old habits die hard,” they truly mean it.

You see, in my family it is in our blood to be part of the armed forces. It has gone for generations that way, and no one has dared or wanted to change that tradition. My father was a military man, my grandfather was a military man, and even my great grandfather was a military man. We were practically born to shed blood for our country, and to hold weapons in our hands. Even the girls in my family (distant family too), knew how to handle a weapon. I was taught the basics when I was only six, but since my dad had my brother it wasn’t necessary for him to dwell too long in my military training. Keith was already the successor and prodigy of the family, and he practically worshipped the ground my father walked on. He definitely wanted to follow on my dad’s footsteps, and by the age of eighteen he had joined the army. Honestly I was happy for him, and definitely glad that it wasn’t expected of me to do the same thing. I was a girl after all, and my dad was a bit old fashioned when it came to girls and fighting. So I was left alone and invisible to the world, and glad for such an opportunity. I hated fighting and violence, and never saw the point to it. Hate only breeds hate I always thought, but of course that was very ignorant on my part. I didn’t realize that we as humans fought every day to establish ground in the world, and survive the currents of time and change. So in a sense, I was an ordinary child until the age of thirteen. It was exactly two months and 16 days after my 13th birthday, when news came that my brother was K.I.A (killed in action). Things were never the same after that.

Two months later after his death my name changed to Keith Green, and three months after that, my mother left me to the mercy of my insane father.

I exist no longer; at least I haven’t for five years already. My obsessed father has been training me for military life, as his new son. Every time I try to establish my existence by trying to explain to him that I’m his daughter, he only replies “my daughter died when she was five.”
He has already convinced himself that I was dead, and yet he is afraid when I am out of his sight. I suppose somewhere in his cloudy mind he knows the truth, and is afraid that I am going to run from him just like my mother.

You see, I don’t mind the training regime anymore; I even enjoy it at some point. I suppose when I realized that fighting for things you treasure is noble and right, my revulsion to it suddenly began to fade away. The sweat dripping from my body, and the ache from my bones reminded me that I was still there. I like fighting, but not guns. The moment I touch the damn things, the metal chills me to the bones. I find nothing natural about guns. I want to fight to protect, and I want to feel my hard work when I do so. Shooting definitely is an easy way out. When you shoot you feel no pain; when your fists hit something, you can definitely feel the pain and you are reminded on what you’re fighting for.

But it’s not being forced to use a gun that tortures me. Having to act, dress, and be my brother is what is killing my very being. I have to eat whatever he liked, and dislike whatever he disliked. If I don’t do that, my father’s training becomes more like being locked in a torture chamber with no way out.

I have nothing besides fighting, and a delusional father. I have no friends anymore since I am practically living in a cage with my father. My relatives won’t help since they are scared of my dad, and nobody will believe me since my dad still holds strong ties with the government and the military.

Sometimes I am scared when I start to actually believe that I died when I was five. I wish I had died back then. When I was only five I fell from the second floor, and managed to survive with barely any scratches. I suppose that’s where my father got the idea that I had died.

My only comfort right now lies on the show “Naruto.” This show is the only thing that me and my brother ever had in common, and also the only thing that I’m allowed to enjoy in this miserable existence. Thankfully soon I’ll join the military and find some little freedom which I have been denied for so long, but I’ll go there as Keith Green; my hell will not end as long as I bear that name.