Sunday, September 26, 2010

Brothers in arms

I was a cell that split and tumbled and mimicked itself over and over until I had decided what I really wanted to be. Some cells become a tree, a blade of grass, an eye or elegant, piano-playing fingertips.

It was during this split that my brother came to be a part of my life. We grew side by side – developing a bond that could never be broken. When I fell, he was left alone, but I watched from the outside, knowing that he would need me. I didn't want to leave, so I didn't.

He was born early, soon after my father's fist slammed into my mother's chest and forced her to the ground, a pleading, messy pulp of a human. Her head flew back towards the wall and smacked against the plasterboard. My father cursed the hole he would now have to fix, and my mother found herself sitting in a pool of amniotic fluid that had forged a path across her thighs.

This is the introduction to the next piece in the series, first started with 'Patient X'. This time the narrator is the soul of the child who did not make it through the pregnancy, and so watched his brother grow – continuing the bond from the outside.

4 comments:

  1. I want more! Is this autobiographical? Those first two sentences are a great hook - they drew me in, the first person narrative always does that to me :)

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  2. It's true that you're darker pieces are your best and it is quite obvious here.

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  3. Hey Lucia, technically no - my protagonist is a boy ;P

    Technically no, as I never saw this happen so my mother.

    But I do understand a violent life, so maybe yes :)

    Hey Ethan, thanks for the comment. I take it that you liked where this one was going.

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  4. Wow. That is some concept for a book. Very good.

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