The day was average. But an abnormal average. The kind of day where nothing’s wrong. The sky was blue, and there were clouds scattered. The kind of clouds that were so fluffy, when you were a child, you thought you could sleep on them. There was the mildly blinding sun, and no breeze. Children ran everywhere, all happy-go-lucky. It didn’t seem right. I was disgusted.

As I walked in the grass, the children’s voices faded. I turned and saw only a little boy who looked like me.
“Hallo Mister,” said the boy. “Will you come play with me and my dad?” He asked innocently.
“Why not? I replied.” The young boy led me to the beach. I noticed it was getting dark, and I worried what my mother would think if I got home too late. Twelve yards away, I could see the silhouette of a man kneeling at the water’s edge. He looked horrified and horrifying. Looking around I saw it was dark, and then I looked back at the man.
He was suddenly right before me, standing. His face dried with the marks of tears, and his eyes blood shot as if he’d just come back from a night of clubbing with some friends from work. If he had work.

“Gray…” he said, hesitantly. I wondered how he knew my name. “Help me… I need you here with me,” he pleaded.
I thought he was a crazy man, but then thought hard to search my memory as a child. Past the ice cream, my brother Matty, and lying on the grass in the park during spring. I looked down at a tombstone that, oddly, had not been noticed previously by me or any other beach goers, otherwise it would have been reported. It read, “Here lies Mary Shore, beloved mother and daughter of Christ.” I was shocked. “My…Mother…” I stuttered.

“Please…Help.” The man pleaded, and suddenly I remembered. I knew this man.
“How?” I asked looking up at him. He was walking into the water for what seemed like no apparent reason. “Wait!” I cried as he waded far into the blue-green liquid that suddenly I feared after years of bathing and living near the beach. His neck and head were the only things on his grief stricken body that were now visible.
“HELP!” He shouted. A large tidal wave flowed toward him. I ran into the deadly liquid known as water, splashing and getting little beads of it all over me.

The wave collapsed over both of us. I was under it completely, with all the fish and sharks and reef. I could see them all. I was drowning. Bubbles rushed towards the sky. Air bubbles. My air bubbles.
“Now!” I heard him cry. “Now! Now! Now!” he screamed.
I felt another splash of cold water and sat up in my bed, soaked as an image of my older brother standing over me with an empty bucket came into view. “We have to help him.” I told Matty.
“What? Who?” He said obviously confused.
“Dad,” I replied, “We’ve got to find dad.”

Matty stared at me long and hard. I felt as if I’d just spoken of death. I realized I basically had. Our mother, Mary, was dead. She’d died a few years ago, of unknown causes. At least unknown to me. Our father had died before I was born. Matty barely remembers him, and we never really brought it up around mom. Or at all. It was almost an unwritten code. It had become courtesy. Matty took care of both of us. He had finished college, and had a professional job at a high paying computer company. I was finishing High school, and had already been accepted to Stanford and UMASS. Both with full scholarships. So money wasn’t an issue.

Matty and I are close. If you took Thelma and Louise, and divided them by Pen and Teller, you got us. Matty’s cold look was a shock.

I knew I sounded obsessed or just depressed about our parents. I was ready to plead temporary insanity if anything happened between us, when I realized that he’d been pouring water on me. I took the opportunity to change clothes since the silence was deadly.

“Gray…” He started, and I knew what was coming. The brother-to-brother talk I had always dreaded. I felt obligated to myself to interrupt and explain the dream.
“No, Matty. You don’t understand. I had a dream… It was so real… he’s out there and there’s water and children, and then it’s dark and Dad he’s there with the bloodshot eyes…” It was not going well.
“Gray-“ He interrupted
“-And the tombstone, mom’s tombstone and-“ I was rambling off the dream so fast, I hadn’t thought of maybe censoring it.
“Gray listen.” Matty said as he sat down. “We both miss them. I know that, and you do too. We don’t need to talk about. But this isn’t the first time you’ve had a dream like this or an idea like this. First it was checking all phone listings under mom’s name, and then there was putting ads on the Internet. Gray-“
“-No Matty you don’t understand! It’s real, the dream, you have to believe-“

“Gray! Stop! You can’t keep going on like this I’ve been supporting us, paying for everything. Bills, Food, Life! It’s hard okay! I go to work at five in the morning everyday and come home at eight in the evening. Some people call me a workaholic, but I have to. They don’t understand Gray, not me. I work, work, work. I have no friends Gray! Nobody! No one to talk to about mom or dad and it hurts! It hurts all the time. So don’t tell me I don’t understand because I do. They don’t understand Gray, the world. Don’t tell ME about how you hurt or how I don’t’ understand, because it’s not fair! I hurt too! You’re not the only one, so stop acting like it! God! My parents died too, but I don’t create a new way to find their dead bodies everyday, I leave it alone and work! I think of him every ten seconds and keep it inside all the day. I cry myself to sleep at night Gray, I actually cry… because it hurts. Stop it Gray! Just stop it! And don’t you EVER tell me that I don’t understand, because I do!” He fell onto the couch in a heap. It was sad, and I knew it. Matty was 26, and here he was a grown man lying in a ball on a leather couch, crying as the tears that fell onto the couch formed little beads, and slowly sank into the furniture.

And I was responsible. I wished I had never told him. Or even had the dream. Or even been born. Maybe if I had never been conceived, I thought, my parents wouldn’t be dead. It all came to me in a rush, and I got the idea that life was a plague, and a terminal illness. I noticed, later that I was banging my head against the wall. I didn’t stop myself, even though I’d thought of it. I didn’t want to. I felt that I could make up for the pain I’d caused everybody in my life by giving myself pain. Matty was grabbing my arms, pulling and crying to make everything stop. I hoped that if I kept banging my head, eventually I’d lose my memory, and the thought of all the pain caused by me and my terminal illness.

The wall had a dent in it the size of a flat tennis ball, and there was blood dripping down it and my face. I heard my brother screaming my name, but I cared less. I was caught up in a deadly high, and didn’t want to stop. Matty pulled me from the wall, gave me a hug, and I collapsed. Partly from crying, and partly from pain. I couldn’t be sure then, because a few seconds later I passed out.


I woke up later, on the floor, wet, and tired. I tried lifting myself up, but soon gave up after the second try. I stayed there. I called for my brother a few times, and wondered where he’d gone. I fell back asleep soon after.

I woke up again, three hours later, and was actually able to succeed. I walked to the couch, still disoriented, and in want of a seat. I couldn’t see well, but I just sat down on what looked like the couch. It was wet, and I was mad at myself for bleeding on mom’s favorite couch. I got up to clean it, and saw the most disturbing thing. My brother, Matty lying on the couch bloodied. It was obvious; at least to me that he’d killed himself. That he’d felt like I’d felt. That it was his fault for causing other people’s pain.

I didn’t know what to do: run, scream, cry or die. I ran out the door, tears everywhere, and screaming at the top of my lungs. I ran to the middle of nowhere. I didn’t care; I just had to leave everything. I didn’t care. That was my problem. I realized that I ran into the street screaming my brother’s name. I turned, and saw the most beautiful Jaguar I’d ever seen. At least I got to see something beautiful before I died. Sadly, the beautiful thing was also the deadliest thing, as it killed me abruptly and completed my deadly high. Deadly beauty. I’d never thought of that in my lifetime