The secret

Zoom…Click

Curly brown hair and a set of dull grey eyes stared back at Flynn as he looked into the mirror. His crooked nose turned up in a sneer pulling at the wave of freckles that lined his nose.

Let’s try this again, he thought.

Lifting up the giant dictionary he held in his hands, he flipped through the withered pages arriving at the page he visited quite often.

Pg-274

Sadness: The basic human emotion of feeling unhappy or grieved over something.

That’s right. He needed to be grieved.

He closed his eyes and pictured his parents displaying these emotions. He could remember their faces crumpling up like a sheet of paper, lines forming all over as their lips turned downwards and their eyes squeezed shut. Tears would turn his father’s eyes red while his mother would let them flow out over her tanned cheeks. Their postures would bend over as if in pain from a stomach ache and they would occasionally place a hand on their heart as if that was the source of their pain.

He knew because he remembered vividly when the call came in and when they had heard the voice on the other side. They were blinded by grief and for a second he thought he might feel something too…but he didn’t.

He looked up back at the mirror and tried to contort his own face. He squeezed his eyes to slits, feeling the muscles around them flaring out from sensation. Next he turned his eyebrows up and watched his skin curl up and disappear under his curls. Lastly, he tried pulling his lips down and opened his mouth slightly as if frozen while saying, eww

Then he did all of this together, at once. Looking back at the boy in the mirror, the expression made him look older, more pitiful. He looked as if he did not look at the world through a hazy screen that could not be crossed, rather experienced the world to the fullest, all the way from happiness to grief and back. Again, he felt disconnected with what he had to do every day but he knew he couldn’t let the world know. He did not want their understanding in the form of more emotions he couldn’t process, especially not now.

“Hahaha”

Click Snap

“Look here, look at me”.

The air smelled fresh and the ground was speckled with freshly fallen leaves. Spring had begun.

He turned on the tap, washed his hands and walked out of the bathroom, taking the boy in the mirror along with him. Walking along the slanted raising of the staircase he exited the narrow path and entered the living room. He placed his dictionary in the lowest rack of the wooden bookshelf and nimbly sat on the sofa, almost unnoticed. Adults had begun piling in, dressed in black and sadness. They lined in mumbling, crying, and consoling into our humble home. Flynn turned to look at the family frame that sat perched next to him, a reminder to remain normal. He picked it up, gently running his hands along the red frame and looked in at the people who stared back. A blonde headed woman with brilliant blue eyes stood next to a friendly looking man. The man’s brown curls fell over his face as his brown eyes lovingly gazed at his wife. Under both their arms stood two little boys clad in their brightest new clothes cheerfully grinning at the camera. One had a lollipop in hand while the other, his older brother, raised his hand in a victory sign. To an observer the family would look perfect, it even deceived Flynn for a second, but he knew the effort he had put into trying to fit in. The times he had tried in the mirror to smile as brightly as Sam, his younger brother, only to end up jealous of how easy it was for Sam while for him it was just a pull on this muscle and a twitch on that. The victory sign was a personal trophy indicating that he had been victorious, in appearing normal.

He placed the frame back on the side table and tried to mimic the emotion of grief. He was, after all, expected to be grieved for his brother’s death. His face contorted as if in pain and he squeezed his eyes, pinching himself to urge a few tears to make an appearance. Adults began noticing his silent wails and soon one after another they came to console him, pat him on his back, and love him.

Click…Zoom…Snap

“Let me try! Let me try!”

“No, it’s mine. I don’t want to give it to you.”

“Pleaaaassee…It will only be for a second”, he urged while pulling on the camera.

“No way! You can’t have it…HEY! GIVE IT BACK”

“Hahahaha only for a second!” he screamed while running away his eyes lined with joy.

“GIVE IT BACK”, he replied angrily while chasing him.

His parents had entered the room. His father held up his mother who now looked many years older and incredibly frail. Rings circled his father’s eyes, like a panda, from a lack of sleep and if Sam was still alive he would have laughed.

They walk towards Flynn, parting the sea of adults, to find him huddled on the sofa sobbing silently. Sitting on both sides to him, they hugged him and told him about how sorry they were that Flynn had to lose his brother. Flynn let out a sign of relief, he had pulled the right emotion, and his secret was safe.

“Flynn, honey, we need to visit Sam. Do you understand? We need to say goodbye”, says his mother leaning over him with a pained expression.

Flynn nods in silence looking at her. They get up and holding his parent’s hands walk towards the centre of the room, where Sam lay. Sam’s face was at peace, emotionless. Finally like him. He almost wanted to tell Sam about what he had to go through every day to make everyone believe he could feel but he knew he wasn’t listening. He was dead, his face sewed together along with his body. His lips blue and cold and his hair combed back evenly covering the missing patches of hair. Sam wouldn’t have liked looking like this, but then again Sam wouldn’t have liked dying either.

A sudden urge overcame Flynn and he excused himself and ran to his room. Crouching low, he crawled under his bed, stretching his arm out to the farthest corner. He felt a metal edge and a nylon strap and pulled it towards him. Turning it over, he ran his finger along the crack in the camera’s screen and looked at the aged glint it gave off.

“JUST STOP IT”, he shouted snatching his camera back and pushing him away with all the strength he could muster.

OOMPH, he groaned as he flew back from the force and onto the cold metal tracks.

Flynn stood, camera in hand, looking down at him.

“Ouch!” complained Sam rubbing his ankle which had got caught in a crevice on the rail.

Flynn stood there robotically looking down at him, finally letting his emotionless state emerge. He turned his head slowly as if observing Sam and what he had to offer. He let his mouth pull up into a smile and raised the camera.

The sound of an incoming train drowned out Sam’s screams until there was nothing but the distant rumbling of the ground as the train sped by. For Flynn everything was silent, robotic, and visible through a lens. He saw through the lens and heard the click of a picture, a memory, being saved forever and witnessed nothing else. He wasn’t there; he didn’t feel anger or sadness. He did not hear the screams of Sam as he was crushed by the train. He wasn’t haunted but relieved. He had a different expression now, a new emotion, saved within the depths of the camera. He had the expression of death and he was smiling, finally, for the very first time.

Flynn stood in front of his brother’s mauled face while his parents stood sadly beside him. He raised the camera to take one last picture and a relieved smile graced his face.  His secret was safe.