Blue Ties

“Toby, why are you not in school?” 

“Uncle Mike!” Toby shrieked as he slid off the dining chair and raced into Michael’s open arms.

“Only you get to call me Mike,” Michael said with a smile, sweeping Toby off his feet.

“I miss you Uncle Mike,” Toby cooed, burying his face in the side of his Uncle’s neck.

“That’s impossible, I was here yesterday,” Michael said, “And back to the question, What’s a ten-year old blond doing at home on a Monday morning?”

Toby toyed with the golden cuff-links of Michael’s white shirt sleeves. “My teacher said there is a holiday today and that we should spend the day with our families.”

“Your teacher told you to spend the day with your family?” 

Toby nodded. His cheeks were rosy red petals, a sharp contrast to his cool blue eyes. 

“Yes.”

“That’s rather unfortunate,” Michael said. He set the boy down. 

“It’s unfortunate that today is a holiday?” Toby asked. 

“No,” Michael knelt before him, “Spending time with family is what is unfortunate. School is what it is, doesn’t pretend, has bullies and you know that, you know what to look out for. But with family…it is…different. There’s always someone who knows just the right way to hurt you, and they will hurt you. What’s worse? You wouldn’t even know to expect it. It just strikes you like lightening, leaving you stunned and burned, and you never get to heal completely.”

“Family is that bad?” 

“I believe so,” Michael replied.

“Andrew! What are you telling my son stupid stuff like that for?” a voice emerged from one of the rooms.

“Go to your room Toby, your daddy needs some lecturing,” Michael said, ruffling Toby’s head and patting him on.

The figure that emerged from the doorway stopped in its tracks.

“Mike? Is that you?”

“I thought I made it clear you don’t get to call me that, Benjamin,” Michael replied, rising up as he spoke. He walked to the refrigerator, opened it and took out a can of Soda.

“Don’t you ever say such words to my son again,” Benjamin retorted, ‘Or I’ll be forced to stop seeing you as my brother.”

Michael gave a laugh; a slow, deep, fruity laugh. “That won’t be necessary, I don’t consider you a brother.” He pulled the can open and walked to the sitting room, settling in one of the fur sofas.

“Why are you here? How did you find this place? How did you know where I was?” asked Benjamin, following Michael.

“After ten years, it’s amazing to see that you’ve finally learned to speak up for someone,” Michael put the can to his mouth. He exhaled.

“Fatherhood changes people, but then, you don’t know anything about that,” Benjamin quipped. He sank into a nearby sofa, his eyes fixated on his brother’s.

“Toby takes the family eyes,” Michael began, “blue, deep, rich and mysterious. I am sure he got that from you. I am also sure he has his mother’s brains; He is a very smart kid.”

Benjamin scowled. “I will protect my son from you, a brother who vanished for ten years only to appear out of the blues and preach crap to my son.”

Michael scoffed.

“I disappeared for ten years,” He stood up and walked over to Benjamin, put a hand on the sofa’s backrest and loomed predatorily over him, “I spent the first fifteen years of my life with you, and ten of those fifteen years were the times I needed you the most.” He bent before Benjamin, “At least, I had the decency to take my body with me when I left.”

“What do you want from me? Why are you here?” 

“I have business in town, thought I should check up on you,” he straightened up with a smile, “Now that that is done, I should be leaving.”

Michael walked to the door and stopped. Turned to face his brother and said, “You should spend more time with your family, we don’t have forever to live you know.” And he left. Leaving the glass door opened behind him.

Benjamin closed his eyes, reclining into his seat. Footsteps.

“Why are you back?”

“Because this is my house and I live here with my family,” Cecilia replied.

Benjamin’s eyes flew open. He started. “Oh, It’s you.”

Cecilia planted a quick kiss on his lips. “Who did you think it was?” she asked, dropping her hand bag.

“What? No one, just an old acquaintance,” Benjamin said, a chuckle escaped his lips. Cecilia raised a brow, and then shrugged. 

“I ran into Toby’s class teacher at the mall today, she said he has improved, a lot, and that he socializes more in school now,” Cecilia said.

Benjamin nodded. “I—I need to go for a walk.”

“Sure…” Cecilia replied, “Ben, you’re as white as paper, did you see a ghost?”

Benjamin gave a nervous chuckle, maybe I did, “Oh, I guess I am just excited.”

Cecilia walked to him and held his hands in hers and gave them a gentle squeeze. 

“About what?”

“I—I don’t know.”

The sky darkened after three hundred years. At least, that’s what Michael thought. He pulled out his wristwatch from his pocket and read it. It is time. He jumped up from the bed, a firm mass of foam with a cheap, whitewashed cover. 

“Come here,” He said, as he picked up a black backpack. He opened it and gave a nod. Perfect. Slid on a pair of black sneakers and made out of the room. With a hiss, he went back into the room and opened the bedside drawer. There was a case in it. He opened it and brought out what it held. A black, small gun. He exhaled again, smiling to himself. 

“This one is for you, Toby.”

He hurried out of the room, managing to lock the door behind him and half ran, half jogged down the hallway into the busy streets.

Benjamin heard it the first time, but somehow, didn’t wake up. Some part of him believed it to be a dream. His dreams always had a scream, a loud piercing scream. A loud, piercing, familiar scream, and no matter how hard he covered his ears, he always heard it. Michael’s scream. 

The scream came again, and this time he sat up with a jerk from his sleep. “Cecilia? Cecilia!”

Sunlight came in broken rays through the blinds, but Benjamin took no notice. The panic in Cecilia’s scream ensured the day took the flavor of a nightmare. His nightmares. He ran to Toby’s room, and there he saw her, her eyes wide and her face slick with tears.

“What…” Benjamin saw it then. The black devil in Toby’s hands. He had never used one but every kid in the US who could think for themselves knew what a pistol was. 

“Hey Toby,” Benjamin said in a voice he couldn’t recognize, “I need you to hand over that gun, now.”

“But why?” Toby asked, his brows bore low above his eyes.

“Why?!” Benjamin clenched his teeth. Cecilia’s whimper reached his ears, “Because, you’re not supposed to be holding a gun!”

“But it’s not a real gun.”

“Just give it to me!”

He handed the gun over. Cecilia drew Toby close and gave him a suffocating hug. Sobbing as she did.

“Who gave you this?” Benjamin asked, examining the toy gun in his hand, “Answer me now!”

Toby whimpered and shrank away from his father. 

“Answer me boy!”

“It was Uncle Mike…” he said in a tamed voice.

Cecilia looked at Benjamin, then Toby. “Who is Uncle Mike?”

“He is my brother.”

“You have a brother?”

“When did he meet you and where?”

“Yesterday night, by the window,” 

Benjamin spurned about, storming out of the room.

“Give me back my gun!” Toby cried out.

Benjamin stopped, and retraced his steps. His eyes were sun crimson and the veins around his temple stood out like huge snakes. “What did you just say?”

“Give me back my birthday present!”

As if on cue, Benjamin and Cecilia’s mouths dropped open. Cecilia gasped.

“Today—today is your birthday?” Benjamin said, guilt spread like black poison across his features.

Toby wriggled out of his mother’s embrace and ran out of the room, leaving two stupefied parents behind. 

Michael walked out of Bradram Hospital. It was the third time he’d be hearing his lifespan was a corn length. But just to be sure, perhaps, a miracle would happen in between his checks. They never did. He sniffed in the August sun, rubbing his head as he did.

Someone bumped into him from behind, he heard the clatter of books on the floor. Instinctively, he turned to help.

“I’m sorry about that,” Cecily stammered. She went to her knees, packing the scattered pile of books on the floor.

Michael chased after the stray papers. He returned, handing them over to her. 

“Thank you,” She said and then her eyes met his. At first, it felt like an icy blizzard shook her frame, her mouth dropped open. 

Michael gave a slight bow and disappeared into the streets with Cecily’s eyes accompanying him as far as they could.

“Something happened to me today,” Cecily said to Benjamin later that night as they lay down to sleep. 

“What?” he asked in a gruff voice.

“I saw a man with eyes.”

Benjamin sighed, “That’s a rarity.”

“No, no, you don’t get it,” Cecily protested, “His eyes were familiar. They were like…they were like…like yours and Toby’s. They were blue, deep…”

“…rich and mysterious.”

Cecily sat up. “How did you know?”

“Because my brother is in town. You don’t get to see eyes like ours every day. Not the common place blue. It started as a disease about four generations ago. People who had it almost sure died before they were thirty.”

“So you are…?”

“No, we evolved somehow, it stopped. Only Michael and I and Toby have those eyes now. Living eyes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Well, I have now. Good night Cecily.”

That night Benjamin had a dream. If the constant screaming and fading whimpers that tore through the closed door of Michael’s room would not be nightmares instead. Later on he saw Michael falling down a cliff, arms flailing with the helplessness of a mast broken in a sea storm, and his own hands never reaching out to save the one person who first trusted him. 

The whole house fell to a slumbering silence. And to Toby, that meant only one thing. He reached under his bed and pulled out a soccer boot, retrieving a small phone from within it. 

“Hello Uncle Mike.”

“Hey Adonis, you good?”

Toby walked to the window and looked across the empty street. “When are you coming? I did the homework you gave me last night and there’s a new one from school, I don’t really understand it.” 

“I’m sorry, I won’t be able to make it tonight. I had to go somewhere, out of town. But don’t worry, you can do it.”

“I can?”

“Yes, you can.”

“Are you leaving me?”

“No, I would never do that, besides, your father is there for you.”

“Dad is never there for me,” Toby replied in a half retort, “He doesn’t even remember my birthday and mom too.”

Toby heard his Uncle burst into a fit of dry, chesty coughs. “Uncle Mike?”

“I’m fine, just…something ran into my throat, that’s all.”

“Okay.”

“Listen Toby, your father had it rough as a kid. No one ever wished him happy birthday, so he doesn’t know what it means telling someone happy birthday.”

“Really?”

“Yea, do you know, tomorrow his birthday?”

Toby’s eyes widened. “Really?!” 

“Yeah, can you draw?”

“I’m not sure.”

“It’s the gesture that matters, not the gift. I’ll send you a picture on this phone, draw it and give it to him tomorrow morning.”

“He didn’t even give me a gift for my birthday.”

“Then you should teach him to, be the change you want.”

“Okay…”

“Good night Blue Adonis.”

“Good night Uncle Mike.” 

A little while after the call, the phone vibrated in Toby’s hands. It was a media message. He opened it. It was the picture of an eye, blue, deep, rich and mysterious. His father’s eyes.

Cecily found it difficult to concentrate at work. Every time she tried to close her eyes, she was met by two blue eyes and a face that seemed to be like time, real and yet abstract. She got up, and paced her office. She tried to think, tried to remember where she saw him, where he was coming from. A knock sounded on her door. She hurried to get it. Defending a murder case was preferable to the torture she found herself in.

The first thing or things she saw as she opened the door were those blue eyes. She gasped. 

“Hello Cecily, my name is Michael, and I am Benjamin, your husband’s brother.” 

Benjamin woke up. Happy to do so. Glad the night was over. The nights that had become his torture chamber, each dream, a different pain.

He walked, barefooted, to the living room. Hoping to catch a glimpse of the morning sun on the balcony. That’s when he saw it. He picked up the drawing on the center table and gazed at it. It was an eye. A very familiar eye. Below the eye was an inscription, “Happy birthday daddy”. Benjamin sat in the chair, his eyes were blurry, and his thoughts were like over boiled noodles. 

“How…?” He muttered in a fading voice.

The glass door slid open. Cecily emerged. A bouquet of Iris in her hands. She smiled at him.

“Happy Birthday Dear.”

Someone else walked in. “Happy Birthday brother.”

“How have you been?” Benjamin said to Michael. Cecily busied herself in the kitchen, and the brothers walked to the balcony, leaning against the majestic, stainless railing. 

“You know how it is,” Michael replied. His broad shoulders were squared, and pale pink lips pursed against each other.

‘You left…”

“You abandoned me.”

“I did not leave.”

“You didn’t have to; your silence did the job.”

“You had it good, you were the smart one. Straight A student. Mum loved you.”

“Did you really never hear the screams?”

“You were sick, mum had to force you to take the drugs because you wouldn’t.”

“That’s what you thought or that’s the lie she told you. The one you convinced yourself to believe?”

Benjamin stared into Michael’s eyes. The blue of his eyes swirled like a black hole, as it always did when he was angry. He exhaled.

“I knew that wasn’t the whole truth.” He toyed with the ring on his finger, “I guess I was just scared of what was really happening.”

“Mother loved me. In devilish ways. Those nights when I screamed, she was forcing herself on me.”

Benjamin closed his eyes.

“I see you are not surprised. You thought as much.”

“You could have told dad.”

“I did. And then at that point, he had to choose between a son and a wife. You know what happened.”

“I am sorry Michael.”

“I know. I returned to see how life was for you. Turned out fatherhood didn’t change some things.”

Benjamin puckered his brows over narrowed eyes.

“Like the fact that you can’t stand your son’s eyes because they’re like yours and mine. Or the fact that you scream every night and wake up in cold sweats. I must confess, I almost liked it, watching you suffer the same way I did those years.”

“Michael…”

“I am dying…”

 Benjamin startled. “what do you mean?”

“Lung cancer. Will be gone anytime soon.”

“But you don’t look it, you look fine.”

“Yes, must be some kinda gift. Look I just want you to live. Not just exist. You have suffered enough. Move on with your life now Ben.”

Benjamin choked. 

“You should help Toby with his assignments, celebrate your family birthdays and enjoy your life, okay?”

Benjamin nodded.

“You know, I watched mother die. And it was glorious. She faded away, into the thin air, in golden dusts.”

“Michael, I am sorry. I guess I also made a choice then, to pretend, to be silent. I did not try to find out what was happening because I didn’t want to face the truth.”

Michael put a hand on Benjamin’s shoulder. “Now you have.”

“I sense that today will be my last, somehow, that’s what I sense. I’ll fade tomorrow. And no longer exist. Just like that, gone, like dust.”

“We don’t have forever to live.”

“No, we don’t.”

A school bus drew up and Toby jumped down. 

“Uncle Mike!” He screamed. The sun bathed his golden hair and his eyes…glowed, a bright flaming blue.

“Only you get to call me that,” Michael said with a grin, “And your father too.”

That night was a feast. The family stayed up till midnight, Christmas didn’t happen every time, but it could happen anytime, anywhere, with the right people, right memories, right family.

“You smiled a lot today…” Cecily said to Benjamin later that night as they prepared to sleep, “I have never seen you that happy, even during…”

“Yeah, I know,” Benjamin chortled, “I missed him Cecily.”

“Yeah?” Cecily sat up, “He told me something.”

“What was that?”

“He said you should give me a name that will be easier to pronounce during emergencies.”

“Emergencies?”

“Yeah, like Mike is easier to pronounce unlike Michael.”

Benjamin bobbed his head in a moment of epiphany.

“Okay, your name is Cecily, so we can name you Ces?”

“No, no, no, that sounds like…”

“Oh yeah. I’m sorry, we’ll figure something out.”

Michael was never seen again. But every time the wind blew Benjamin would hold out a hand, into the wind and imagine that the grains of dust kissing it were his brother’s. The one family he ever had.