Brothers/Sisters

I think the pain meds are kicking in.

A horrible and beautiful and all-around bittersweet realization: other people don’t matter. Neither do I, technically, except to myself. That’s what I’m talking about, though. I learned, via what most people would refer to as The Hard Way, that doing everything with the sole purpose of impressing or winning the approval of one person—or many other people—leads to becoming burnt out and bitter. It’s a slow self-destruction from the inside out. Worse: you don’t realize it’s happening until you’re that burning thing about to be snuffed out.

Worse yet: that realization made me stop one day. With the fire fully gone, I was a listless, glazed-over husk. I think a better question is, how long are you staying? The truth is, I don’t know. I’ve ran myself into a rut. My mind wanders back to the night on the bridge, the snow dancing around in the streetlights.

The three words that started it: I got waitlisted.

The three words that finished it: I’m your son.

The snow, stopping. The Camero. And before that: the kiss, that proto-catalyst, that episode of carelessness that I could’ve avoided.

My neck twitches and I roll over in bed, as if my mind and body are working together (for once) to expel the memories. How long are you staying? God. It shouldn’t bother me like it does.
Existential crises and near-panic attacks aside, though, I have reasons not to sleep shirtless. Good reasons. Reasons good enough to hold up in court—or not. Otherwise, though, I’m a big proponent of underwear sleeping, mainly because I can bury myself in a massive blanket pile regardless of season.

The downside: I have to disentangle myself from my blankets to roll over, or I risk strangling myself. With the blankets gone, I can feel the moonlight on my skin, coupled with the glow from my phone that tells me that I’ve got a message. I roll over again, burying myself and my phone, which stabs me in the back through the blankets.

The problem: I slept all day. All frickn’ day. There’s also the vaguely existentialist thoughts that like to creep into my room like rats at night. Tonight, though, oversleeping is the problem. I think. The existential stuff happens so often that it’s like Nietzsche staring at me seductively every time I roll over, fluffy moustache and all—God, why did I even think of that?

Oversleeping, then. I sit up, the a blanket sloughing off my bed, making that stiff duvet-specific crinkling sound. My nightstand clock reads sometime around midnight, and I insisted on returning to work tomorrow...or, today, technically. In the wise words of Ask: whatever.
Picking up my phone, I pull on some sweatpants and wander into the kitchen, only to find that I’m not hungry once there. The problems faced by the casual—as opposed to a devout—midnight snackers are, indeed, bounteous.

I just grab a glass of water and stare blankly for a moment at the equally blank TV. The light’s on in the guest room (Ask’s room, I correct myself), but hear no sound emanating from it...though it may be drowned out by Dave’s snores. After standing in the middle of the kitchen and scratching my neck for a few more minutes, I end up taking my glass of water out to the patio, though not before grabbing a sweatshirt from the corner.

Outside: the cold air doesn’t sting, but in a couple weeks, it will. That’s the rockies for you. That listlessness has overtaken me again, so I just stand there—deja vu—listening to a dog bark next door. A light flicks on, a door slams shut, and the barking stops. Tree branches rustle above, though there’s no discernable breeze on the patio.
Flopping onto one of the two battered wicker chairs, I scroll through my messages (easy: I only have one).

Carina: u going to work tmrw?

I type a quick yeah and set the phone and water on the table between the chairs. It buzzes again, though, after about thirty seconds. Rubbing my eyes, I turn the screen’s brightness down.

Carina: stay home. get some rest.

Chht! The sound of dozens of tiny branches snapping. I jump, my phone clattering across the patio.

“Garrett.” It’s a whisper, slight and quiet, but I know the owner.

“Ask? What are you doing out here? Don’t you sleep?”

“No.”

“You didn’t answer my other question.”

Ask emerges from the gloom, covered in wet, dew-slick leaves but otherwise unharmed. Well, mostly unharmed; he’s holding Dave’s binoculars in one hand and is missing the other. I can barely see him in the low light—most of it’s coming from the kitchen, at that—but that light reflects off his eyes in a way that makes me think I’m talking to a cat instead of...whatever Ask is.

“What were you doing?” I repeat.

“Birdwatching.”

“Bullshit.”

“You don’t trust me?” He pauses. Our earlier episode of camaraderie aside, there’s no need for me to reply. “No. I know you don’t.”

After what happened yesterday (it is after midnight, so that makes it yesterday, no matter how todayish it feels), I don’t want to play this game. Besides, he’s a thief. “Alright. How many birds did you see?”

“Three.”

“Of what kind?”

“Doves.”

“Just sitting in a row?” I pretend to frown. “Hm. That’s odd. All of them?”
He gives me a withering look.

“Gotcha.” I take the binoculars. “And where’s your hand?” Don’t tell me it’s in the bushes. Again.

“In my room. It doesn’t work.”

“Does—doesn’t...nevermind. So. You climbed on the roof one-handed with the binoculars to...sightsee?”

“What makes you think I was on the roof?”

“You fell into the bushes.”

“How do you know I wasn’t in the tree?”

“I know basic physics.” I nearly failed the class in high school, but Ask doesn’t need to know that. He doesn’t immediately reply, instead perching on the chair opposite mine.

“Did you see that car?”

“I’ve seen many cars.”

“The brown one.” Before I can react, he takes my glass of water, swishes it around, and eats an ice cube.

“Should you be doing that?”

“No. But I saw it.”

That dinky little Taurus? I’m not sure I follow. Not sure that I want to, or care to. So I just say, “Okay,” and lean back in my chair, listening to drone of the crickets and not asking for the water back.

“It was moving.”

“Cars do that.”

Ask huffs, then gets up and goes inside, not bothering to shut the door. I’m starting to think that he has something important—or at least important to him—to tell me, but he’s not sure how to tell me. Or I’m just too obtuse to see it.