Perspective

I walked beside my brother on the long path. We talked for quite some time. We caught up on life, our future goals, and just about all we could. I hadn’t seen him for a few months with how busy he’d been. However, I knew he had something deeper to say, but kept a bug kept flying into his face. He kept cutting himself off as we approached the more difficult subject of his recent break up.

“Damn it” he’d keep saying after a, “as I was saying—”.

The bugs on our hike were relentless. I stopped for a moment, attempting to offer him some relief, and said “How about we get some bug spray?”

“No, let’s just keep going.”

He pointed towards the river, towards a spot we were going to fish. The river was high, the rain had been awful these past few days.

“Damn it” he said again. A loud slap, right on his face.

He looked towards me, as I stopped fully, now rummaging around my heavy pack for some bug spray. “Mosquitos are bad this year, how are you not getting bit?”

“I offered you bug spray, remember?” I said, but he just kept batting at them.

I then remembered he was going to tell me about the break up, and couldn’t stifel my patience against the little blood suckers any longer. “Are you going to tell me what happened or not?”

He got really quiet for a second. He seemed angry, but I wasn’t sure if it was because I asked about his ex, or if it was at the bites he was now scratching furiously at.

“It’s beautiful today,” he mentioned through gritted teeth, I now realizing it was the bites and not me he was mad at. I was still mad he brushed off my question. He just got up, smiled, and said “I’m glad we went for this walk.”

I wanted to know what happened, because from what I heard, it was less than graceful as far as breakups go. Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to press on, at least for now. He was more preoccupied with his own well-being, and his frustration at the bugs seemed to be growing as he yelled profanities at every flying life form that came his way. So, I wasn’t going to make it worse.

Alas, I too was becoming more and more frustrated at his protest against the bugs, and couldn’t take it any longer. I finally spoke up. “We could go back to my house, talk there?”

Before I knew it, his hand came up to meet my face. He hit my forehead so hard, I was nearly knocked over. My brother hadn’t raised a hand to me since we were young, having been your average rough housing kids. I shoved him straight down on the ground, surprising myself I was able to do so, as small as I am to his large frame.

He lost his footing, and went tumbling down from the trail towards the river. Scared as hell, I ran down to see his confused face, looking up at me.

“What the hell? What was that for?” he asked, checking to see if the pain on his head was caused by hitting it on the rock behind him. Crouching beside him to check his head, I could see he was fine, but couldn’t hold back my anger.

“You were going to slap me because I wanted to know why she left! Why she hurt you! Why anyone would hurt my brother! And here you are, ready to hit me! What’s the matter with you!”

His face went red with embarrassment for a moment, and a small smile crossed his face. I thought I’d forced him to go crazy. I couldn’t read him at all, and it made me even more angry.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?! Let’s go, I’m taking you home.”

He grabbed my hand that I lent down to help him up. He began to laugh though, as he stood, trying not to fall over from whatever in that moment made him laugh so hard.

“Dude what the hell is wrong with you!? Get your shit together and let’s go,” I said, shaking my head, still trying to understand.

“You don’t understand!” he cried, laughter still echoing in the wooded area we stood in.

He walked up to me, and I flinched, raising my hands up, thinking he’d smack my head for hurting him. He swatted my hand away, and as he did, he wiped my forehead, then held out his hand to present me with a smeared carcass of a mosquito.

I’ve never laughed more in my life. “Stop jumping to conclusions, okay?” he said. “I’ll tell you what happened, I’m not mad you asked at all. But I’ll tell you, I needed that more than you know.”