My Shining Star

I should get around to talking about my brother Calus. For such a large influence on my life, it’s odd that I haven’t spoken about him sooner; we’ll, if he knew I was writing about him right now, he'd probably curl up in a ball of embarrassment. Hopefully he never finds this story; for the both of our sakes, he should never be allowed to know any of this. That’s why this is the first and last story I will write as Daeda; a story I’ll never tell, all about my shining star. 

As I was typing away on my laptop, I heard a crash from upstairs. The room above me would be my brother’s; thus I did the only logical thing: taking a broomstick I found lying outside the door, firmly gripped it, and then proceeded to repeatedly bang it against the ceiling in response to my brother’s ruckus. “Quiet down will ya! I’m trying to get some sleep down here!”

“You’re the one being loud!” His reply is delayed, but equally as aggressive as mine was. After a small bit of banter on both sides, I return to the desk as I continue typing away. I could still hear the sound of shuffling upstairs, but I let it pass. The moment of celebration was understandable, all things considered, opening that letter from the competition you’ve put all your hopes and dreams into, the anticipation as one unseals the notice: I know it all too well. 

One glance at his expression when he received the notice told me everything, despite him trying to keep it as far from me as possible. The sense of anxiety in my chest was overcome with a slight sense of happiness for him. Taking a deep breath, closing my eyes for a moment, I burrowed both as I continued to tap away across the keyboard. I don’t have time to do anything else right now. No, I can’t allow myself to think about anything else.

It’s a bit odd trying to start a story this way; trying to place a solid starting point for someone who’s been omnipresent within one’s life. I guess you could say it would be akin to asking me about what I thought when I first started to breathe. I imagine someone somewhere would be able to answer that, but forgive me for being vague. To me, Calus has always been a reliable big brother. Someone who I have always respected, and nothing about that will change. 

Our parents were a loving, hardworking family. This resulted in them working long hours at their respective jobs. Mother was an office worker and father was a doctor; both ended up working late into the night. In the time that they were at work, Calus would spend his time with me. 

“What story would you like me to read you today?” 

“Umm...Larry Potta.” 

“Dee, you really need to learn how to say the name right.”

“But what if the police arrest me, didn’t you say that it was copyrighted?”

“Dee, that’s not how copyright works.” We had a large assortment of books in the house. My brother had become well acquainted with a lot of them in the time I had spent trying to learn how to speak. I remember thinking that he had read every single one of them, until I told him to read one of dad’s medical textbooks from his college years. The image of my brother putting on a serious face as he tried to pronounce medical terminology was both a surprise for little old Deedee who thought her brother knew everything and something I had held, and will continue to hold dear to me.

Sadly, there weren’t enough books in the house to sustain reading one every day, and the local library wasn’t close enough for two kids to walk to. Our parents worried over us leaving for the neighborhood playground when they were gone, imagine trying to reach the library with legs shorter than the length of father’s shoe.

Yes, I did in fact test it.

“Calus...tell me a story.”

“...do you want Larry Potta?” He picked out the book with worn out pages from repeated turning; I remember thinking that the book felt pitiful somehow. Even though nowadays I think a story that’s worn out so by reading would gladly be read one more time, but at the time I didn’t really consider the book’s purpose in life when I made that assessment.

“I want a new story.” I made a difficult request; Calus’s eyes darted around the room as he tried to find something new to read, to no avail. Even those medical lexicons that neither of us could understand, we had flipped through them together before. Seeing that look in my brother’s eyes, I figured I’d give up, but before I could open my mouth to cancel my request, his reply cut me off.

“I know, how about I make a story for you?”

“Can you?” 

“S-sure I can.” He placed the book back on the shelf as he nervously shifted himself to face me. 

“Once upon a time-“ the story stank of cliche and rehashed ideas. Nothing he stated had any semblance of anything novel, or something that hadn’t been seen before in any novel we had previously read. It wasn’t a good story, a story without theme, without a moral, an empty story made to convey nothing. But those eyes that lit up as he continued to ramble on and on, stumbling over his words as he tried to form sentences from nothing; that was the brightest I had ever seen Calus before. Like a comet flying through the sky, whose substance consisted of an assortment of ice and rock, but which held a radiance that could shine brighter than any star in the sky.

I think it was shortly after this point that I realized, I don’t even know if I really paid attention to the stories themselves. When I returned to the stories myself, I didn’t really find the same enjoyment I found when my brother read them to me, the suspense and story beats found themselves lost on me; my eyes merely passed over words on a page. I think that’s when I realized that I cared for those stories when Calus read them. At the time, I thought it was because of the way he told those stories; looking back though, that was never the case. 

As the years went on, and as school became more and more of a commitment, the time we could spend together constantly decreased. Other than eating, Calus was always holding himself up in his room; when he wasn’t studying he was playing games. I tried asking to play with him once, but the result was a dismissal to play with kids my age. Every Saturday however, he would make some time to tell me a story. He was always at his happiest when describing a new world he had created, one of heroes, villains, and justice. One time when I was peeking through to his room, I saw countless bruises under his shirt, when I entered the room to confront him about this, all I saw was his usual smile and the words:

“Hold on a second, I’ll need a bit more time to finalize this story. It’s actually getting really good, I promise it’ll sweep you off your feet!” His eyes shone with excitement as they locked onto mine, but I realized that at that moment, he wasn’t looking at me. When he finally got around to telling it, I ended up realizing that it wasn’t written for my sake…no...none of his stories were.

So I let it continue, if you had to ask me why, I would say that I was scared. Scared of what you ask? Scared that if I ever broke the status quo, that somehow in some way, it would break the delicate balance that Calus had finally found for himself. That would have been my answer at the time, but now I realize, I was only worried about what would happen if he gave up on writing; more specifically, what would I do when he stopped telling me stories.

That must have been the reason I became so scared when he told me that he was planning to go for a degree in Computer Science when he went to college. 

“Why do you want to go into Computer Science? You don’t know anything about coding?”

“Well, it pays decently well, and I spend a decent amount of time on computers, so it should work itself out.”

“But what about writing?”

“Not everyone can become an author Dee.” I couldn’t find the words to deny him as I just slowly watched as he turned around, and it felt as though he was drifting farther and farther away from me at that moment. 

I didn’t want to, no...in my mind I couldn’t let that happen, so I set to work immediately. Opening up my phone, I started writing. Nonstop, I continued to place words down onto the page as the words passed through my mind, there was no need to take a break, the words have been so deeply ingrained in my mind that there wasn’t any reason for me to stop. By the end of my trance, the entirety of my brother’s story had been transcribed. I breathed out as I noticed how late it was in the day; actually, I guess 4 in the morning could be considered early. The result was something that was hard to scroll through, so I didn’t take the time to look it over. I should have considered it odd at the time, why the word count ended up so large, but the only thought on my mind is where I was supposed to send this to.

I’m not quite sure what happened after that as all the adrenaline had passed through me hours ago, but I remember uploading the document somewhere before hitting the bed. 

That almost drunken stupor was long forgotten by the time I woke up and had to go to school. So that excursion ended up being forgotten until weeks later. 

“Daeda, there’s a letter for you.” 

“Coming.” It was a rare day when mother came home early enough to be there when I got home from school. I came down from the stairs and saw the unassuming letter, having completely forgotten about that day, I gripped the note tightly when I started to actually read the contents. 

“Something wrong Daeda?” My mother snapped me out of my trance as I managed to wave her off with a fake smile.

“Nothing, it’s just a newsletter about a book series I enjoy.” 

“Should I tell Calus then?”

“No, I want to surprise him.” I managed to escape that scenario with half truths as I rushed to my room. The words are still engraved in my mind, but I read it again in order to confirm that I hadn’t made anything up. 

“Congratulations on winning first place in our contest-“ the following barely took my notice as the consequences of winning first meant more than just a lump sum of money. It was a guarantee of being published in their next anthology volume. The excitement that ran through me at the moment caused my hands to shake. “My brother could become an author, the world has recognized him.” With those words in my head, I could barely contain myself. Breathing out to calm myself, I decided to keep this as a surprise, and only reveal it when the anthology came out. 

I looked up the release date, and resolved myself to keep quiet till that day. Watching the calendar, when that day came, I headed to the nearest bookstore and purchased three copies: one to read, and one to display, and one to show Calus. At home, I placed one on the shelf, and placed another on the desk to read later. The high school gets out an hour later than middle school, so he wouldn’t be back for another 90 minutes since he had a club as well. I attentively waited for the door to open, to see my brother’s eyes light up with that same glow. 

“I’m home.” When the door opened, I didn’t care if he was tired from club activities, I placed the book in his hand.

“Brother, look at this story.” I said turning him to the page where his story was. 

“Can’t I sit down first? I’m kind of hungry.” 

“Just read it already.” After another couple rounds of back and forth, he ended up relenting as he picked up the book. Flipping through the pages, I stared at his face with a look of anticipation. How will he react to seeing his own story published? Will he jump up in joy like I did? Will he cry out in astonishment? Will he bawl his eyes about becoming the author he always wanted to be? I continued to stare at his every feature to try and figure out his state, but I found myself stunned to find not a hint of surprise, or any other emotion as he flipped to the last page. Looking up, I tried to predict his reply, but nothing prepared me for what came after. “So? How was it?”

“It’s good.”

“Is that it?” 

“Well all the stories you usually pick out for me to read are good.”

“Look at the author.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.” He flipped to the page, but the word that arose wasn’t his name, or even mine. It read “Minos.” I don’t quite remember what happened after that, I just felt dazed as I headed back to my room, and checked my own copy of the book. Reading through it, I realized that it wasn’t my brother's story, all the plot points were there, but the way it was told was completely different. I saw now that Calus couldn’t even recognize that it was supposed to be his own story, and it felt like the world started to crash down on me with that realization.

The publishers got back to me, and I continued to write stories for them. Who knows why I wrote Minos instead of his name that day, even if I wrote my name that could have fixed everything. But I wrote Minos, and I continued to write as Minos, only ever being able to base it off of my brother’s old stories, and him never being able to tell that they were even his. The comet in the sky growing hopelessly dim the more and more I tried to see it, as the seasons came and went, and college application season was coming up, his schedule became more and more hectic, and even the Saturdays which were our sanctuaries became crowded out. I despaired at the thought of him going away and giving up on writing. 

As the name Minos became more popular, and winter started approaching, I felt the sky becoming increasingly dark. The publishing company requested that I help them be a judge in the same competition I used to get published. I half heartedly agreed, as I had given up hope almost entirely at this point.

When I received the manuscripts I needed to sort through though, there was a name that shone bright, and caused me to relight my hope again. Picking up his manuscript, my burning hope turned into a rock that drew me deeper than the Mariana Trench. It was not a story about heroes and villains, about fantastic tales and adventure. It was a story of a boy and a girl; the boy had a dream, he would become a knight in order to protect the girl. He picked up his sword every day, in order to become someone who could protect her. One day, when she was attacked, he went to defend her, but before he could act, the girl had already defeated the assailant. 

Every attempt to become someone who could protect her, she was always ahead. No matter what he did, she always stood apart from him. The story ends with the boy picking up his sword once again, and as I saw that, I knew that this was the last time he would ever pick up the blade. 

I cried, he knew from the start, I tried so hard and failed, and became the obstacle in the path I wished for him. I couldn’t describe it...no, if I did describe it there would no longer be any meaning. That’s why, this emotion. I’ll hold onto it forever. 

His story was qualified to be sent up, so I did. Passing the final round after me is a testament to his strength. 

Yet I knew, if he ever finds out that I was one of the judges, he might just give up on writing entirely.

That’s why this story will be Daeda’s first and final story. 

In order to keep the lie going, this story will be mine and mine alone.

To make sure that my shining comet continues to fly on its course in the sky, unperturbed by the one viewing it.

Forever and ever.

Closing my laptop, I go down to dinner to see my shining star make its first flight.