The Samilarities in Our Differences -Short Story about Brothers
Photo credit: taliesin from morguefile.com
May 5th 1995,the month ,date, year , when I was born, there after me ,by a matter of a few seconds ,my sibling, later on in life my only sibling ,trailed me . Yes, Michael and Marcus, the lovely two boys of the town’s lawyer and well ,a regular house wife, Jim and Lilly Thomson, my parents , correction, our parents.
It had not much difference to tell about me and my other, that is, my double , my twin. Even I had gotten confused about who I was ,my mother told stories of me ,Marcus ,running towards her when I was much younger, asking which one was i? ,and by God’s will ,I thank ,I wasn’t Michael.
We shared every possible thing, bed, games, Comic books ,home-work, teacher, same grade, well she ,our teacher didn’t bother to check who’s work she had ,which one of the M. Thomson ,but decided to make our grades universal, and so ,I will say here and now, it was for the best, it hide the fact that I was the “more capable one”, and being twins was at Michael’s advantage. It would always fantsize me how everyone confused us, the butcher down 12th street , cab-driver Bill, Spanish Alberto ,practically everyone except our parents…and ourselves of course, and for a while ,well years we allowed people to roll the dice on who was who.
Well those years came to its short end like high school. It was one afternoon after school, riding home on the bus ,a fine young lady signaled me over to her seat, her offer of the seat was an irresistible temptation ,much like her beauty. So I sat beside her to discover her interest in Michael ,She asked “which one are you?
“ I am Marcus”
“Oh..um..well it’s about Michael,why wasn’t he in school today?”
“well my brother is sick ,the Flu”, noting her concern after my response I ventured on to ask “why are you interested about my brothers’ absence?”
“well ..um I find him cute…has he ever mention anything about a girl named Rachael?”
“well I can’t really recall”
“oh, ok…um I have to go now, here is my stop”
“bye then, and don’t worry Michael will be in school tomorrow, you’ll get to talk with him”, as she made her way she showed a slight gesture of happiness, turning back at me she said “yea…I’m not so sure about the talking part”.
On my remainder five minutes journey home, that I had a series of revelations, she never really talked to Michael ,but it was him whom she liked, it was there that I came to the conclusion that I was the ugly one, which was under my suspicion for some years now. After that day I dressed differently from Michael, and I made my nerdy-ness more pronounced ,and boy, what a terrible mistake that was, I realized by the reaction of the feminine society, that I was always in the Michael’s shadow, nevertheless after completing my mental evolution and emotional resuscitation ,I decided on trying my luck on a young lady ,I was lucky that day, all thanks to shakespear , my brothers world and mine parted in the stream of life. Well, until mother found about Michael’s so called “late afternoon classes” ,I too had my share of the whipping.
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