teaser excerpts

Index

Foreword

The greatest thing about being a famous writer, is having the opportunity of not needing to write at all.In producing a novel, writing typically takes only 20% of the process, even less, sometimes. The remaining 80% belongs to the research, creation of ideas, living and experiencing life. Tasks that you’d need to do in order to have something worth writing about.In the last few years, I feel like I’ve only been focusing on the 20%, making me feel like I need to regain the 80%. Take a break.Honestly, I’m all out of ideas.It’s why I’m on a “short” hiatus. Quotation marks on the word short because I wouldn’t admit to my editor that I don’t really have a timeline on when I’ll come out of this slump; the man is already stressed enough as is with the other diva authors, and I know that if he finds out, he’ll try to micromanage me into finding a solution for my writing slump.I don’t want to tell my husband either. He’s the type of guy who does chores to clear his head, and I know for a fact that he’d suggest I do more chores out of concern for me. I told my daughter, but she’s only still 3 and I doubt she really understood what I was telling her.The only place I’ll openly admit and articulate my feelings are here, the foreword of this new collection of short stories I’m trying to write. Not to say that I trust my laptop more than my family, but I’m still writing regularly, so to everyone else except me, I’m still working as hard as I ever was.However, as I continue to write this new collection, it feels like I’m actively working on my 80%. What I’m doing is more remembering than actual writing, because these aren’t my stories—they’re my father’s. He told me them when I was still a kid.I might continue to be cooped up in my office, but trying to recall his stories, it makes me feel like I’m elsewhere, makes me feel like I’m back at my childhood home or at the park near where we used to live.He never wrote down his stories, which confuses me because he used to be an astrophysicist obsessed with keeping data almost to the point of hoarding. But the fact that I can’t just rummage through the things he left behind and read it didn’t frustrate me as much as I thought it would.It makes me feel nostalgic, more than anything.I was grocery shopping the other day, and I remembered how going shopping was somehow always in his stories, and how when I thought about it now, it didn’t really make sense. You can’t find designer clothes and tech shops in a wet market. I was a small, sheltered kid. I’ve never really been with my parents when they went to the market, so I didn’t really question it back then. Now, I realize that my dad was really just making things up as we went along, tailoring each scene to my reactions from the previous one.Still, his messy stories made sense. Almost as if he was an experienced writer in literary nonsense or magical realism, where the odd details and randomness enhanced the story.I was hooked in storytelling. He’s one of my answers when I’m asked about my favorite writers in interviews, which often surprises the interviewers. He had been publicly known as a scientist after all, and he has never published anything remotely creative; his bibliography filled only by his history of research.What surprises interviewers even more is when I tell them that he had never been an inspiration for any of my works. You can make an argument that his stories inspired me, maybe, but him specifically as a person and my father, no. I think that I was too young when he left, that I didn’t get to know him well enough for him to become my inspiration. Which was weird, because somehow, I feel like I have a responsibility to tell his stories.As much as these stories were his stories, I can’t remember them verbatim and in the process of my rewriting of them, they have become mine as well. Through these stories, for the first time, I can say that I was inspired by him.I take my strolls through town and I’m beginning to recall things from my childhood.A bent lamppost. There had been one near the park we used to live in.A telescope. He used to take me and Mom stargazing when he wasn’t busy.A cat. I recall us together begging Mom to let us adopt one, a request never granted.I see traces of memories from my childhood, and I’m thinking now that he might’ve had a bigger impact on me than I previously thought. I feel the responsibility to tell his stories, after all.While I love writing, it gets tiring sometimes, but the process of trying to remember my dad’s stories doesn’t feel like writing at all. It’s not a tedious experience of trying to come up with descriptions of my imagination, paragraphs upon paragraphs. It feels more like I’m getting to know my father through snippets of what I can remember.I hope he forgives me that only now, I’m trying to remember him. I hope he’ll enjoy how I weaved in my writing style in his old messy bedtime tales.Your stories, written for you, Dad.

How to find directions back home?

I spent my days wondering how I wasn’t dead yet.No one warned me about the silence.Any sound I make gets sucked out of the shuttle into the void. Air-locked, nothing should be able to get in or out, yet the sound disappears.Silence is only silence when there is sound to remind you of quiet. I resist the loudness of the noise—the physical sensation of my beating heart, is my only reminder that I’m still alive.I am not afraid of never hearing again, and I am not afraid of death.What I am afraid of, is sleep. To succumb to fantasies and lose all that I’ve worked for. Lose all of this valuable data. Automated maintenance systems are failing. A few hours of sleep will be my death, and the death of this data.I must not blink for too long. I know even a wink might allow my hallucinations to take over me.With barely any sleep, my movements became practiced, subconscious. Self-care is an afterthought.I can barely tell reality from dreams to hallucinations. Then again, is it so wrong to fall asleep? My crewmates have left me. I’m alone in the darkness.Drifting and drifting and drifting.I think of her.Dreaming and dreaming and dreaming.My daughter...Thoughts and silence and darkness.I wish you could read my lips when I whisper. “I’m sorry.”

“Where am I?”I uttered the question accidentally, as if my throat yearned for the sensation of talking in a familiar proper atmosphere.For the first time in a year, I actually got to hear my own voice, and to be honest, I’ve forgotten how it sounded like. It was hoarse, worn out after not being used for so long. After all, I didn’t have much use for speaking when I physically wasn’t able to produce sound, but it was my voice nonetheless.With the lined-up beds’ plain sky-blue sheets, the sparkling clean tiles below, and the IV on my arm, I felt comfort in knowing other people brought me here. It was a hospital, probably, or a clinic.This was Earth, for sure, gravity and breathable air are enough proof, but I have no clue where. I wish there was a window, that’d make identifying where I was significantly easier, but at least, on the far side of the room, there was a television playing a show I’ve never watched.The show was in a language I can’t understand. It didn’t sound like English, Chinese, or any other common language I’d recognize. The setting of the show was generic, taking place indoors, it could be just about anywhere.I would just ask where I was, but there were no other patients in the other beds, and there isn’t any button I could press to call for help. I tried standing up earlier, and knowing I crashed onto the floor and struggled getting back to bed, I’m comfortable keeping myself in place. If I knew I’d be rescued, I’d have taken my exercise routine more seriously.I wish I was able to sleep and let time pass as quickly as possible. It’s not that I don’t have the patience to wait, after all, I’ve been patient inside the void for about a year, but I’d rather know the answers as soon as possible.How long until I’ll be able to walk? Would I even be able to walk? Where was I?When will I be able to go home?I did consider screaming to get attention, but I could still just barely speak a whimper. I tried clanging on the bed’s side rails, but even that was too tiring to be worth any effort. I wondered how light I was currently, knowing I didn’t make enough noise for anyone to notice when I fell off the bed earlier.How would you describe the passing of time?From what I understand, you do so in reference to the things you could observe. The soup cools after a few hours, a sun rises to remind of a passing day, a revolution of the earth around the sun means a year has passed.When I was in the spaceship, I used my reports to describe the passing of time. A date, followed by the data I compiled that day, attached with my personal log. The personal logs weren't mandatory for the mission, but it was one of the only ways I had to amuse myself.These logs were a series of guesses concerning resources pertinent to my survival. One day, I’ll guess and write down how long I think the oxygen would last. The next day, I’d guess when I thought the water would run out. The day after, if the remaining battery and electricity of the shuttle.Without sunsets, without the cooling of warm food, the calendar and this guessing routine was my point of reference, confirming with myself that yes, time was indeed passing.What made me uncomfortable here in the hospital bed was the lack of a point of reference. I didn’t know what day it was, what time of day it was, nor how long the movie was going to last or how long ago was my crash on the floor.So I passed by time with me asking myself questions.Just the simple things, like the manner in which I was rescued. How much technology had developed in the time I was away? How were they able to pull me from the black hole’s gravity? I wondered about the time dilation that allowed that kind of technology to develop, how old everyone I knew was back home.What happened?I was honestly considering crawling and dragging myself to the door, but I figured it would be disrespectful to whoever rescued me. Fortunately, I didn’t need to wait long.Hundreds of unanswered questions later, the door unhinged and allowed a silver ball through, this yoga ball of some sort, rolling to my bedside. It spoke before I tried to touch it.“Hello, Sir Valdez. I would like to inform you that you will be released this afternoon.”“Released? I can’t even walk properly yet.”It hummed like a cat’s purring. “I apologize, not released, transferred. We’ve concluded you do not carry harmful bacteria on your body and will be transferred to a more proper accommodation where you will be cared for.”“This is a quarantine facility?”“Yes.”“Where?”“Alexander.”“Is that a city? What country?”“The space station Alexander, under the jurisdiction of the Ohiri star system.”“I’m on a space station?”“Yes.”“Of what year?”“11,101.”The passing of time is described in reference to things you could observe; in physics, an observable is a physical quantity that can be measured. A date is not a physical quantity, only an idea everyone agreed on. I’ve been lost ever since I took off Earth, 2587, that memory is my last reference point, and now, 11,101, I struggle with grasping the difference in time.Fantasies end abruptly to do basic math. 11,101 minus 2587 is 8514. Big enough of a number that it doesn’t really matter.“Do you have any requests before your discharge?” The robot asked.“Um, can I have beer, I guess?”I didn’t need to mention that I wanted to drown myself in alcohol.

When the ball rolled away and left me alone, I paid more attention to the television. With thousands of years passing, it was no wonder I couldn’t recognize the language.Human civilization began about twelve thousand years before I was born. It was incomprehensible for me to think that the time I’ve skipped was almost double the existence of human civilization before I left. Thankfully, if the show was any indication, it seems humanity hadn’t changed so much. Same height, width, head, torso, and limbs.Regular humans.After a couple more hours, the door finally opened once again. The first person I’ve seen in more than a year entered the room.She was a tall, slender but muscular girl. She had dark skin and long, silky black hair draped over her denim jacket. Regular tall, regular muscles, regular dark skin, regular long hair, and regular clothing, complete with a regular tacky floral belt. Not the kind of futuristic image I had in my head.She pushed a wheelchair to my bedside and tapped on a watch on her wrist. She smiled and spoke words I didn’t recognize, her soft voice enhancing the euphony of this unfamiliar language.“I’m sorry, I can’t understand you,” I said, cutting her off.She crumpled her eyebrows and took a phone from her pocket, calling someone else. She said something, sighed, glanced in my direction to give a comforting grin, and spoke words which I’m guessing meant an apology. She removed the watch and wrapped it around my wrist. She tapped it twice and spoke again.“Hi, I’m going to be your new janitor.”“Janitor?”“No, not janitor, cleaner.”“Cleaner?”She put a finger up. Wait a moment. She fiddled with the watch-like device on my wrist, mumbling words one by one.“New custodian, warden, attendant, keeper, guardian, caregiver, roommate, housemate! I’m your new housemate!” She grinned at herself for figuring it out. “Sorry, it took a while to calibrate, the archive on your language back then was fairly empty before you came.”I struggled to decide on how to respond. “Um—”“—Ah! Sorry, a bit too much too quickly, no? Let’s get you out of here first.”I nodded, and she helped me onto the wheelchair. Honestly, I’ve always thought that this far into the future hovercrafts would become the norm, but nothing could really beat the ingenious invention of the wheel.“What’s your name?” I asked as she pushed me out the door.She shook her head before chuckling, “I should’ve started with that, no? Call me Samantha.”“Samantha?” I paused, slightly taken aback. “That’s the name of my daughter.”“Really?” She cheerfully asked. “Interesting coincidence, but Samantha isn’t really my real name.”“Huh? But you just told me that it’s your name?”She took my wrist once more and tapped on it twice. She spoke one word: a soft hush before the sound of the tongue gently placed behind one’s teeth. Shh-na.Her name was Shana.She tapped on my wrist again. “That’s my real name. The translator translated it literally into Samantha, but I’d rather you say my name properly. Anyways, what’s yours?”“Raphael, but everyone just calls me Rafi.”The hallway was as bleak as the room I was inside in, with the cleanliness you’d expect of hospitals and the hospitality of memorial chapels. Hallways upon entryways and corridors, there weren’t a lot of people, then she opened another door, and sunlight.“Bright?” She asked.“I can’t see anything.”“Here,” she passed me over a pair of sunglasses.I fumbled it in my fingers as I wore it, and I was left speechless.You could tell me this was all a joke, telling me I was in a space station when I was, in fact, in a hospital somewhere in Europe, and I would believe you. We were on top of a hill, a field of grass with flower beds all over lay before us; on the far side, a forest with children playing right at the edge. A city is hazy in the distance, and that’s how I knew it wasn’t a sick joke.You can’t build skyscrapers sideways. I wasn’t in Earth anymore.

How to lose a brother?

“You’re trespassing,” Genisis complained.“It’s a public park, kiddo, the place doesn’t belong to you,” Simon replied, not moving an inch from his dominion of one of the park benches.They were in the middle of the woods, which was situated in the center between the Annex, the research lab, and the residential area where the retirees like Jeb lived. Why there was a park in the middle of the forest is anyone’s guess. It was inconveniently distant enough where people may decide to go there to exercise, though with how it’s simultaneously teeming with overgrown weeds and mosses on the paths that lead to it, people seldom go there.Sterling, when he still had the time to frequent the park, theorized that the park was a hub that allowed for movement between the three places during the spaceship’s construction, knowing how the broken concrete base of the paths were wide enough for a two-lane road if all the shrubbery had been cleared out.Essentially, they’d be at a roundabout. Simon groaned at the memory of this fact. That wasn’t metaphorical in any sense at all.“Can you at least move to another bench?” Genesis asked. “That’s my favorite one. And you’re hogging it. We can share, just don’t lie down.”“Shoo, Nissa. Can’t you see me being pissed? I thought you were supposed to be smart.”“I am!”“No, you’re not.”“I can prove it.”Simon yawned, not even bothering to open his eyes. “Sure.”“I know, for example, that for a matter of fact, that—”“Just get to it. Don’t—"And then Genesis sat on Simon’s stomach, adding a hop beforehand to add a bit more force. As a reflex, Simon sat up, to which he smacked his face onto Genesis’s outstretched fist.“That as a matter of fact, that you’re predictable and easy to get you to do things.”Simon clutched his belly, as he held his forehead, not knowing which was more painful.“And there, sharing isn’t so hard, see?” Nissa said as she took her rightfully earned spot beside Simon.“C’mon, that was uncalled for,” Simon creaked. “You could’ve just asked me to—”“Oh? Really?”“Well, okay, yeah, fair. But why are you even here in the first place? I come here a lot and I’ve never seen you here.”“What do you mean?” Nissa retorted. “I come here a lot and I don’t see you here.”“That’s impossible, this bench is literally where I spent my whole high school in. Have you even seen underneath the bench?”“Oh! The bad cheesy love poems were yours?”Simon grimaced as he just leaned back in defeat.“Though if they were yours, how come I’ve never seen you here? I’m here at most afternoons, though I’m sure you wouldn’t know that since you’re always busy with piano practice or whatever. How long has it been since the last time you came here anyway?”“Two years.”That answered the bench territory argument. He stopped frequenting the place just when Genesis had joined the orphanage, of course they wouldn’t be seeing much of each other.The last time he’s been here… was when he made the bend on the broken lamp post behind them. How… did he break it? No, he didn’t break it, it was Sterling’s doing.On an inconspicuous day about two years ago, he took one of the lying pipes around, from worn down sign posts or abandoned building projects, and he swung at the lamppost with all his weight behind it.Simon’s starting to remember. I was when Sterling decided that he would quit is other extracurriculars and focus on violin exclusively. It wasn’t a pipe that he used to make the bend, but the bat that he used in the baseball club that he had just quit.“Don’t tell me you broke that lamppost too?”“Not me, Sterling.”“Eh? I wonder if I can blackmail him about it for dessert later, destroying property and all.”“Probably not, it’s not like the park has electricity anyways, it’s always been broken.”“No, it isn’t.”“Excuse me, I was here first, yes, it is.”“I fixed it.”“Fixed it?”“See!”Genesis reached out to the lamppost beside to where she was sitting, opens a latch at its base, and flicks one among the several switches, lighting up the whole park around them. Lampposts galore, the pavilion at the middle glowed despite its tattered appearance, it was like main street after the apocalypse.“Touche.”“All I did was replace the bulbs once I found out the switches. I cleaned the pavilion too, since I hide there often when it rains.”“I take it back, you are smart.”“Was the demonstration earlier not enough to prove my intellect?” Nissa asked with a smug smile.Simon waved her away. “Tsch. If anything, all it proved was your relation to Jeb. Reckless and violent all the way through. Though you fixing everything by yourself is pretty reckless too, who even gave you money to fix the place?”“Grandpa Jeb.”“That explains the littered cigarettes all over,” he said as he tossed himself up.Simon walked to the bended lamppost.“What’s your obsession with that lamp post?”“I’m trying to remember something.”He opened a similar latch at its base, only to find it hollow. He shakes it, nothing happens.“Hey! That’s still connected to the circuit! You might get electrocoated.”“No, no, I won’t,” he said as he bits his tongue after getting slightly grounded. “I just know this has a secret somewhere. Can you turn off the lights for a bit?”The moment Nissa does so, he sticks his hand into the hollow latch and fiddles with the wires going above. He touches the edges, looking for… aha! He pulls out a piece of paper, wrapped by this masking tape.“What’s that?”
“Time capsule.”Nissa laughed. “That’s your time capsule? I have one hidden around here too, so it’s not like I’m any better, but yours is just plain pitiful. That’s barely even paper.”It was almost yellow, probably due to the adhesive of the tape they used mixed with the humid air of the forest. It rained there every so often to water the trees and plants, being an artificial forest that the spaceship crew had to maintain.He peeled the tape from their capsule, thinning the paper even further. Nissa scooted over beside him to see what was written in the paper. To their surprise, as he unfolded everything, two guitar picks fell out.“Did… you use to play guitar? Or Sterling?”“Our dad did.”A pause.“So, what’s the story with the picks?”As he heard those Nissa’s words, he finally remembered why the lamppost was bent in the first place. It wasn’t hit by a metal rod that was coincidentally lying around, nor was it bent by a bat that Sterling used to have; it was their father’s guitar. And it wasn’t two years ago, it was further back, almost 8 years ago by now, when Simon was 9 and his brother was barely 10.Incoherent screaming was the first thing that Simon remembers, he can’t recall if it was him or Sterling who was shouting. It was the afternoon of their father’s funeral, and Sterling ran into the woods for some reason. Simon, not knowing what to do, chased after him before anyone had the chance to hold him back.Was it raining? They’ve been here many times under the rain, mud under their nails. Just for fun, when they wanted to skip school or rehearsals. Memory upon memory jumbling with one another, he wouldn’t be surprised it had rained on that day; he recalls being drenched. Or it could easily just have been him being soaked in his own sweat on a hot day.“The guitar picks, they were given to us by our late dad. We put it here as a time capsule.”“Because?”“What do you mean, because?”“I mean, that’s it? There’s no story behind it?”“He wanted us to be musicians. Rocker in his early years, I think. Hated him as a child, not like hate-hate. I mean, aggressively dislike? Never knew mom, so I had to take Sterling’s word that Dad was better than what I knew of him. He made me practice guitar every waking moment.”Simon thinks of his father’s smile on his portrait beside his urn of ashes during the funeral. His grin was identical to when he’d play guitar with him.“As much as I say he forced me to practice, when he wasn’t working, he’d be with me all the time, playing or teaching me how to play the guitar. It’s not like I can actually hate him for it.”“How about Sterling?”“He’s been on the violin ever since, even if he wasn’t as obsessed with it then.”“He didn’t like it?”“He ran away from practice time a lot. When Dad died, there was even a time where he avoided it completely. I dunno if he was jealous or what, because from the get go, I had more of Dad’s attention.”Plastic, the two picks on Simon’s palm weren’t sepia like the yellowed paper it was wrapped in, but with time, its bright neon colors had faded. Looking closely, there were scratches on the ground, with a bit of brown visible if you inspected it intently.It was from the mud, Simon had guessed. Sterling threw it onto the mud that day, or did he throw it at the nearby grass bed? Either way, it was Simon who found the picks after Sterling realized he didn’t want to lose it after throwing it away.Simon continued, “One pick was mine; one pick was Dad’s. Sterling might’ve been mad that what Dad left us was an item that reminded him of a memory me and Dad shared that didn’t include him. Destroyed Dad’s guitar here on the lamppost.“I mean, it wasn’t like it was the only thing he left us. We still have ownership of our old townhouse in the city, and a bunch of money, and it wasn’t like the picks were part of his will. It was given to us by the moving company who were storing our furniture, said we probably wanted to keep it since it just so happened that it was beside the shelf where we had Mom’s urn and important family photos.”“Jeez,” Genesis buzzed. “Looks like Sterling had anger issues.”“Like you don’t! You unruly child!” Simon said while ruffling her hair.But what Genesis observed had been true. Sterling did have anger issues, a far cry to the responsible image that most people know him by today.He says it’s his biggest regret, that their parents never got to know him this way. Responsible, dependable, like Mom. A lot of people say Sterling was like their mother nowadays.In the same way that he played Piano, in the same way that he took way more responsibilities than he needed to when it comes to taking care of the younger kids, in the same way that he puffs his cheeks when concentrating and in the same way that his favorite dessert was gelatin.Sterling said, many years after, that they were almost always separated the way they were raised when their parents were still alive. While both took care for both children, their Dad would be carrying Simon around on a baby carrier while their Mom took care of Sterling.She was his first teacher, he said, who first taught him the violin, how to spell, and basic manners. That last one kind of failed knowing his early anger issues, though, one could probably forgive their mother, knowing most of these lessons were taught to him from her hospital bed. She was sickly ever since, apparently, and the reason why it was one parent for each child most of the time was less that their mother took care of Sterling and more of Sterling gravitating towards her every chance he had.“At least, this unruly child has the politeness to hide away in the park, instead of making trouble out in the open.”“Excuse me, my brother is way easier to deal with than you are. He only makes trouble, at least he doesn’t smack people in their faces.”“I’m sure you wanted to smack your brother in the face at least once or twice!”“Never,” Simon smirked. “Unlike you, I’m an angel!”That was a lie. He definitely wanted to smack his brother when he threw away the picks.Simon might have said back then that he completely hated playing guitar, but he instantly wished he cherished those moments more once the accident had happened. Sterling, he took it harder, possibly because he was still so caught up with Mom’s death that when Dad died, he didn’t know how to handle it.Their dad was their anchor, Sterling’s affirmation that no matter how rocky their lives were, they’d be sticking through anything together.He remembers now why his brother ran away into the park. It wasn’t because he was grieving over their father. It was because Simon and Sterling had an argument.“You’re not an angel!”“I totally am. Never physically hurt anyone.”“Even in outdoor games like tag or whatever?”“Even in outdoor games like tag or whatever.”Another lie. Simon punched his brother when Sterling suggested that they throw away the picks. Not that a punch from an eight-year-old really hurt.Of course, they were taken care of by the people in the Annex. Moving in was easy with Clara’s help, whose sisterly command over the kids in the orphanage at the time allowed them to fit in with the group seamlessly. Renee, Shana, and everyone else were so kind that it was almost as though they gained a surplus of new aunts and uncles.And none of these aunts and uncles were able to stop them when the two kids ran away moments before the funeral’s ceremony concluded.“I’m going to throw away the picks,” a nine-year-old Sterling whispered to Simon.“Huh?”Before his brother was able to ask anything, Sterling snatched away the picks from the pew in front of them as well as the guitar clutched in Simon’s arms and ran out of the room. Not knowing what just happened, the kid’s first impulse was to run after his brother. He didn’t realize the adults calling after them under the loud thuds of his own footsteps.With no direction in particular, Sterling runs into the forest hoping that the lush, dense undergrowth of the forest will able to lose his brother off his trail. Even with shorter legs and worse fitness, because of the weight of the guitar Sterling was lugging behind him as he ran, Simon was able to keep up.Scars all over their arms, sharp twigs and thorns cutting them as they ran by, they stumble upon a clearing. It was the abandoned park, the concrete flooring beneath them overrun with moss. Drizzling, if Sterling continued running, he’d probably hurt himself, or worse, hurt his brother. He stopped at one of the park’s lampposts, leaning against it to catch his breath.“Stop!” Simon heaved. “Dad wouldn’t have liked this.”“It’s all about Dad to you, isn’t it?”“Mom would scold you too.”“And what would you know! You barely even know what Mom was like!”“Just because you knew Mom better doesn’t mean you get to steal that!”“Steal these?” He put the two picks between his fingers. “This belongs to me just as much as it belongs to you.”“No, it doesn’t. One is Dad’s and one is mine.”“Exactly why we should throw it away. Dad is gone now. We can’t have things like these holding us back. We should—”“Give them back!”Simon ran to his brother and tackled him to the ground, but not before Sterling had been able to throw away the two picks to a patch of tall grass near them. Then Simon punched Sterling. And again. And again.“Get off me!” Sterling shouted as he overpowered his brother to get away.He took their father’s guitar and held it over his head, preparing to retaliate. But Simon didn’t want to fight anymore, his body was aching from all of the scars from running through the forest. He didn’t know how to punch, so he hurt both of his wrists. Tears ran down his muddied face as he lay on the ground, clutching his hands in fetal position.Sterling, with no other place to aim, swung the guitar onto the lamppost. And again. And again. Until such time when the guitar’s body was smithereens and all that was left was the guitar’s neck. He shouted his throat out as he threw the guitar neck to the ground and kicked it into the bushes. He continued shouting, kicking the lamppost as he did.Kick. And again. And again. Until he lost his voice and the shoe’s toe cap was giving out. His knees collapse to the ground, his adrenaline finally losing to the exhaustion from all the running.Quiet.Except for the sound of dripping water onto tree leaves, a reminder that it was drizzling. His skin crawls, Sterling didn’t realize that he was shivering from the cold.“Simon?” He whispered with a raspy voice.The boy continued sobbing on the ground.“Simon?” Sterling repeated, with more effort.His younger brother clutched his legs hearing his voice. He reels back even further.“I’m sorry,” Sterling said as he too, began to cry.

The two brothers sat there in the rain, crying for a while. They had no reason to stop doing so. When they ran out of tears, the drizzle made sure to make them feel as though they were still bawling out their eyes.“I’m sorry too,” Simon said.“No. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. I’m just, so…” His words trailed off.“I get it. And I accept your apology.”“I’m sorry.”“Yeah.”“I’m sorry.”“I heard you.”“I’m—”Simon lightly punched his brother on the arm, snapping him out of it. “I know.”“I’ll look for the picks in the grass. You can sit over there in the pavilion. It’s my fault, anyways.”“I’ll help.”Sterling got up and helped his brother up. They walked over to the patch of tall grass, going on all fours and feeling the soil with his hands for a triangular piece of plastic. They found both of them just as the day went out.They were later found by a search party as they trudged back out of the forest.They weren’t scolded, they were pitied, more than anything else. Especially that Sterling sprained his ankle and Simon injured his wrists, but they were still reminded not to do that ever again. They took this reminder to heart, not fighting ever again. Sterling especially, perhaps out of guilt for what he’s done, became a proper older brother. Both to Simon and other children in the orphanage.The sudden change in his personality confused a lot of adults in the annex. Especially when he began playing the violin almost right after destroying their father’s instrument.“It’s what our parents would’ve wanted,” he said.And following his brother, Simon picked up the piano not that long after, tried to be a better older brother to the younger kids as well. After all, diligence in music was what his father preached, and by Simon’s words, it was what they would’ve wanted.“So, when are you going to tell your brother that you’re not going after him when he leaves the planet?” Genesis asked.“I’m not even sure that I want to stay here. Well, I could end up deciding to follow him there.”“And leave him out of the loop?”“He’s not out of the loop, he’s at the end of the loop.”“So, you agree that you shout tell him soon.”“That’s not what I meant; I was saying that…”“What did you even mean by end of the loop? Eh? There’s no planet in the galaxy where that metaphor makes any sense in particular.”“And why are you even thinking about not going?”“I’m thinking of giving up the piano.”“Whoa,” Nissa was taken aback. “You’re lucky that I’m smarter than the typical eight-year-old, because what the fuck. I’m not the one you should be talking to about this.”“Profanity!”A chuckle between the two of them.“You need to talk to Sterling, Simon. If you don’t want to lose him.”“Yeah.”