Creative Writing: A Lesson Before Dying

Ernest lay in bed, laboriously breathing with turpentine and olive oil painted onto his throat for the war had not been good to him and the Spanish Flu was spreading like wildfire among the people in New York. Mother was sitting in a chair with frozen tears upon her pale cheeks, a deep red cascading from her wrists and flowing between her fingers. Her mouth was slightly ajar as though she wanted to say something. But desperation had silenced her forevermore and every voice she had was sewn together. My own mouth was slightly ajar, a thickness of silence and despair too suffocating to handle. I waded helplessly through it with a deep red set about my hands as they touched the cheeks of my eldest brother. His body had become pale, deathly
sickening. His eyes were glassy, but dark, and would be breathtakingly beautiful if they were placed into those glass dolls I saw in the toy shops. “Cathal,” he croaked. “Yes?” I poked his green eyes and rubbed them gently; Ernest only stirred. “Where’s father?” “The majority of himself is on the wall closest to the door.” I poked his eyes a bit harder, moving the red and sweat drenched hair from his cheeks. “Mother?” “The chair.” “Why do I not hear her?” “She seems to be wallowing in a deep sleep.” Ernest coughed as a blue tint creeped onto his face, disrupting my fingers.
“I’ll be gone in a moment, Cathal.” “All will be fine. You’ll join father.” “Say a prayer for me.” “Why say a prayer for an unforgiving brother to an absent god?” I sneered and walked away, anger displacing my guilt. I had become numb with ignorance; I had become neglectful. I was becoming the very thing I despised. “Please, Cathal…. I love you.” “You love the idea of my forgiving nature in your most desperate of times, Ernest.” Anger rattled my spine, though I know our closeness during the war had blossomed a newly found form of love. I believe it was called companionship. Nevertheless, I resented him for his abandonment. So death shall take him painfully and slowly. “Cathal…” His breath wavered, as did his voice, and his eyes rolled to the back of his head, the only true beauty I could find, disappearing. It didn’t take long for the doctor from the other room to enter with an alarmed expression plastered onto his face. “What in the
devil?” “When I see him, perhaps I’ll ask.” He grabbed me by my shoulders and shook me violently, as though the devil himself were inside of me. I expected this; red stained my hands and the souls of my family were lingering in the air, waiting to pass on. “What have you done?” “What has the war done?” His fingernails dig into my skin beneath the rags that hang loosely on my body as his hot, heavy, onion stained breath hits my cheek.
“I’ll call the police!” “But this is New York, sir. The police are too occupied. Plus, sir, I have committed no crime.” The gears turn roughly in his head, knocking off the rust. With his thought process resisting comprehension, he grabs my ear and drags me into the dreary outside. The wind stabs at my exposed skin as does the brittle grass, Dr. Woodsworth looming over me. “Devil Child!” He throws small doses of water onto me that has been purified by his holy hands. “Go back to hell!” The neighbours hear his clamor and stride outside to investigate. Their pale hands grip the hems of their shirts as frosty breath slips from their open mouths. “Oh my goodness!” “It can’t be!” “Truly a Devil Child!” Every voice carries and fuses together in the atmosphere, its result but a sound of a flickering candle in a silent room. “C’mere!” George, our closest neighbour, grabs my collar and drags me across the
street. “Coin me a rag doll, sir,” I murmur loud enough for him to hear. “Shut up.” He’s not positive of the situation. His shoulders are tense, but not from anger, and his mouth is slack with confusion.