Weep For Abel

The air hung thick with the smell of boot polish, formalities on greeting cards, and formaldehyde. The drizzle came and went, circling above the collective, reminding onlookers of their existence. A square two dozen feet gathered around the freshly clod hole in the earth as the casket was lowered. Next doors son stood straight and awkward, his expression remorseful. By him the school master, aged now, more so that he was in school. He too looked sorry.

"Ashes to ashes" said the preacher, his words were mute against the crashing weight of the dirt that was falling from his hand. Forty Six, young really. Mother wept solemnly on the shoulder of father. Her black veil one that should never have been worn. As his black tie should have been reserved for his peers. Nearly four decades they had been separated, brought together on behalf of this tragedy. Sister Daisy wiped her baggy eyes beneath her black hat and held her son close.

How would they react? If they were to find out that the cause of so much woe was their own - Brother to the deceased?

My brother had been born six years before me in a little house on a Jamaican street in the industrial heart of England. He and our sister Daisy were the sole children of the household until I was born six years later. The whole family had been pushed to the brink by my birth, Father had to work more and Mother had to spend less. Life had been simple but never easy. I suppose it was naive of me to think death would be any different.

I looked at the white casket as it slowly covered with grey dirt, coming in now by the shovel load. With every soft thud of soil my heart fell in my chest until it reached the end of a bottomless pit that I knew in my soul I could not retrieve it from. My lungs strained with every ragged breath. My stomach turned and twisted, rending and ripping. I could be sick. I wanted to turn away from him; lying cold in the ground. Not breathing, but still thinking. He was a great thinker, my brother. He read more than anyone else in our class when we were kids. I suppose now we'll have to figure out what to do with his book collection. Some two-thousand novels and textbooks. I should think that he'd have like to have been buried with some of them. After all, he had been such a fan in life, it would have given me some sort of comfort that he'd enjoy them still in death. But I could not look away. I owed him that much at least. For old times sake.

In all my Forty years of life my brother had been by my side. From our time as children, bullied and abused by our classmates, our return to the old country and life in the decrepit squat in Hartshill.

I remember when we were in the Air Training Corps as teens. He was always so much better than I was. He did as he was told and learnt the drill and steps that I never bothered to. He was good like that.

We hadn't always been friends, it's true, but he'd always been there. It changed, however, in his final ten years. We had gotten into an argument, he said I was never there enough for our aging Grandmother. It wasn't that I disagreed, but I was young in my mind. Selfish and stupid. But I felt I had many things to do and see before I stayed in one place too long and got comfortable. That ended with a few thrown fists and a vow. I said to him, the night of December 20th,

"Don't ever call on me," I shouted, my face was bulging and contorted, "don't you ever call on me for help because I won't come!" I left that evening in bitter blood, my face red awash with anger and in my heart I had become Kane, for in my heart I had killed my brother; and he had been dead to me since that day. But I return now to see him one last time, frozen in grief, and face awash in tears. If I had known that his life would take such a turn and that his mind should be driven from the realm of reason to the most darkest and fearsome of places I would never have left his side. I would not have condemned him to this death. I would never have killed my brother. And perhaps he would have been alive today.

I kept my eyes low, and on the piling earth. I could face the judgement of the Holy Father in the eyes of divine countenance, but I could not face it from my own father to whom I looked up to so many years. I couldn't face my family with the guilt in my eyes so heavy that it flowed down and swelled into a puddle of evil. I would fall to my knees and cry out if it would make things better, if it would undo what I had done. I would cry to God in anger, for what justice is there that he should be there, among the worms and roots as I stand above, with feelings and emotions that I have so abused in my life; all the drink I have taken, and the fights I have had, while I was neglecting my family he was with them.

I watched the last of the dirt heaped on the top of the grave. I could take it no longer. The weight of my actions was crushing, and utterly destroying.

I'm here brother! Open your eyes and spring out from your chamber. Come and embrace me in your arms and forgive me for my sin and call on me as your brother once again! Read to me once more like you did before I knew how. Strike me for my foolishness and return to me again. Please! I'm here damn you! But you are dead. And I have killed you. And I shall face my recompense in Hell. My only hope is that up there, somewhere, you can forgive me, brother.