by: John Wayne Comunale
“Maybe this isn’t the best time to mention this,” I said just before squeezing the trigger, “but I’m your brother.”
I know he heard me too. I could see the weight of my flippant confession smack his flat forehead and reverberate recognition through his eyes in the brief moment just before the bullet ripped his head apart. The wound opened the back of his head wide and exploded out with the sweetest tasting strawberry jam. It was the same strawberry jam our mother made for us, although separately since neither of us could know the other existed.
For quite some time, mother was successful in keeping up this charade, and while she was always able to keep my brother in the dark, I had figured it out quite some time ago. The thought of having to share my mother with someone, especially someone I couldn’t see or interact with in any way, drove me insane with rage. I didn’t realize how intense my wrath could be until after the first incident. The fact that I didn’t even feel bad about it made me realize it wouldn’t stop until he was dead. I had to kill this unknown being bound to me by blood along with anyone who got in the way.
Including her.
Including mother.
The first incident I had no memory of, but it was told back to me with vivid details via eyewitness accounts. Mother had just gone, and I knew she was going to him. She was going to feed him the strawberry jam. She was going to dote on him now. The last thing I remembered was a heightened feeling of anger that rose from my feet to quickly overtake me. That’s when I stopped remembering. That’s where I went blank.
Apparently I was inconsolable.
Apparently I swelled with strength.
Apparently I killed them all.
Mother came home and found us all like this, and she knew the jig was up. Like a boulder hanging by a thread, it was only a matter of time before I snapped and destroyed everything she’d worked so hard to build. She didn’t try to reason with me because I was far beyond the point of reason. I didn’t care about mother’s work or the importance thereof. I just cared about finding this secret brother of mine and destroying him.
I cared so much about killing him that when I killed
Finding him wasn’t hard since I was led by an unknown force desperately driving me to succeed. Hacking my way through those who surrounded him was just as easy and forgettable as the others. He was confused and cried out for mother with fear in his voice. I delighted in knowing his cries were in vain. He looked like a puny, extra-needy and helpless version of myself. He was despicable and I felt no remorse for what I did, and I still don’t.
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John Wayne Comunale lives in the land of purple drank known as Houston, Texas. He is a writer for the comedic collective MicroSatan and contributes creative non-fiction for the theatrical art group, BooTown. When he’s not doing that, he tours with the punk rock disaster: johnwayneisdead. He is the author of The Porn Star Retirement Plan, Charge Land, and Aunt Poster as well as writer/illustrator of the comic-zine: The Afterlife Adventures of johnwayneisdead. You can listen to his podcasts here. John Wayne is an American actor who died in 1979.
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