Author's note:
All the characters engaging in sexual activities are eighteen years or older. References, express or tacit, to songs, films, television series or other artistic works in this submission, are made as a tribute to the original works, without intending to infringe the owner's copyright. Any other resemblance which this work of fiction bears to any actual event is purely serendipitous.
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Redemption
[When life sodomized him and destiny refused to put out, his sister was his knight in shining armour.]
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Chapter One
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Withdrawn. I've been observing him for the past two months. Andy's been withdrawn.
Not that I did not expect this, given his 'condition' over the last two and a half years and so, but what he has been doing to himself recently, was somehow ringing the warning alarms in my head. And unlike Mum and Dad I wouldn't ignore it and write it off as something which was 'all in his mind'.
The dynamic of our sibling relationship was peculiar. When he was a kid, he was my baby more than Mum's. But post the inception of the rebellious teenage years, we never were the siblings joined by the proverbial hip. However, notwithstanding that, we still were best friends, and the strength of our bond would make the strongest chemically bonded molecule jealous. So, I'd always know when my brother would be genuinely in pain and when he would be irritatingly happy.
As I was thinking all this over looking at him, without paying any particular attention to him hitherto, consumed in my own thoughts, I noticed what he actually was up to. There was it again. He was looking at the knife with that face and that half smile that this knife would be, lumps formed in my throat as I thought of it, the solution to his current predicament.
That was the second time I'd seen him longingly look at that knife as if she would be the source of utmost happiness in his life. I'd already seen him look lovingly at the fan on the ceiling. I'd also once caught the expression on his face when he'd take his antidepressants; it was as if he were stopping himself from taking more than the quantity which was prescribed.
He spoke to us only if absolutely necessary. He'd be in his room all the time working (He's a tax consultant). And from what I'd seen, more than twelve hours a day and sometimes even on weekends. Though he is passionate about becoming a Chartered Accountant and an International Tax Expert, I hardly saw him spending any time with his books, despite his exams being a mere two months away. He's had no 'girlfriends', 'girl' friends or any friend for that matter either. He seemed to be wallowing in self-pity. From what I'd fathomed, he's deriving a dark comfort from some guilt cycle he created for himself.
It was then that I realized something; something in no uncertain terms and something as clear as the absolute daylight; something which I always suspected; but something which I always suppressed. He wanted his life to cease to exist.
I was finally able to put two and two together.
The result when you'd perform arithmetic operations with two "2s" with either a 'plus' or a 'multiply' in between i.e., you add up two "2s" or you multiply them, the answer always would always be '4'; don't know why this always gave me a strange satisfaction.
But never in a thousand years on God's Green Earth, would I have imagined putting two and two together would horrify me to the extent it did then.
I so wanted my realization to be fallacious.
Mum and Dad might not have known how serious the situation was turning out to be, but if nothing would have been done then, I'd have lost my brother (whom I'd already kind of lost in a technical sense) FOREVER. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself, if god forbid, that'd have happened.
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Two weeks had since passed my dreadful realization and my fears had only compounded. I seriously felt that I had to speak with him, had to break that 'wall'; had to have him open up to his sister.
But I for a fact also knew that this process had to take place at his pace. It must be he who must let me in. If I tried forcefully barging in, though only with bona fide and purest of intentions, he won't see it that way and that would further him on the god-awful path he was already on.
One of my biggest challenges was how to approach him since he didn't want to do anything with any of us, unless it was unavoidable and absolutely necessary. He loved us. No doubt about that. But, as incoherent as it sounds, he loved us without wanting to talk with us and without wanting to do anything with any of us. Mum and Dad, I could understand were a little orthodox and unconventional accepting his depression, but me: his best friend and his doting older sister; he wouldn't even look me in the eye. Yes, we weren't all chatty and stuff growing up post puberty had kicked in, but we were still each other's best friends and I'd never felt that unease I faced then, any time before.
When we were in elementary school, I remember this one time I had scraped my knee and was in tears. He came running to me, seeing me in tears, even he broke down himself sobbing. But even in that state he hugged me tight, wiped my tears and promised me that he would never let a tear sit on my face. He honoured his promise even in our teen years.
Seeing him depressed and in perpetual agony was crushing me inside. I often found tears tracing my cheeks. When I needed him to honour his promise the most, he was conspicuously absent. My tears weren't important to me. His happiness was (and is and always will be). His smile, his happiness had (and still does) the effect of evaporating all my tears. Those tears which could be seen and even those which couldn't.
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