Cactus Rose

The rain is pouring down...heavily; cover the world in its sadness…as it cries.
“Zip it!!! Will you just shut up? Gosh! I’m tired of hearing your freaking stupid song for hours and hours!!!”
“But...”
“What? Just zip it, OK? Gosh! It’s already bad enough to have to take you to school on my beautiful bike, now I have to listen to your “pretty little” song for hours. How worse could it be?”
“…”
Stupid! What a stupid freaking unlucky day. His bike got broken and I am the one who have to get him to school. Man! It’s raining like crazy, and I have to go a lot farther thanks to that spoiled brat. There goes my uniform, and my stylish hair, how will everyone think of me when I step into the classroom looking like a beggar that was ragged on the street, my friends will definitely laugh at me. Gosh! And it’s your entire fault.
How can everyone say we are identical twin, and we even have the same name, Khoi, which literally mean handsome and talented!!! Right at the time we both were born into this world, there is already a separate between me and him. He, my younger brother, had a mental problem in which if I’m right, is mental retarded. He has difficult time learning like normal person. It’s so easy to recognize one from another - a handsome, intelligent, talented me and a stupid, ugly, retarded HIM.
I hate him; hate him since I start to recognize the differences between us. I feel embarrassed around him, I feel hatred when I look into his face, I wish he had never existed, never been born into this world, an ugly copy of me!
He always follows me around since we were young, and that really irritate me. Sometimes, I just kick him out of the way and yell at him with whatever bad and horrible words that I can find. At that time, he just remains silent and walks away quietly. Who knows what he is thinking in his mind. Well, I don’t care about it anyway. What a retarded!!!
And guess what?! On my birthday, well, OUR birthday, he gave me a cactus, loveless and ugly like him.
“Someday, it will bloom a really really beautiful flower….”
“What? Are you kidding?! Gosh!! Yeah, like it will actually “bloom”…..”
What a laugh! I don’t care about that stupid ugly plant. Why didn’t he give me some new game discs?! Didn’t he know that “Devil May Cry” is already out? Gosh! Or some new clothes, I’m running out of them right now and the next talent show in my school is coming up.
I have always wondered “Are we really from the same egg?” There is too big of a gap between me and him. And I have never felt like he is my brother, my identical twin. Look at my friend’s brothers and sisters, how cute they are, how delighted they are, why I don’t have any brother or sister like that instead of this stupid walking “chunk of meat”. I’m sick of him, sick of his way of following me everywhere, sick of his ugly voice….Why does something like “that” can even be born onto this world, and why does it have to be me to suffer this?!
It’s raining…….heavily, lay a gray curtain on the world.
I look back at Khoi with a look of threatening, order him not to sing again. Suddenly, I see his eyes, staring at me fearfully; rain is racing down his face…or is it tears…
Suddenly, lightning comes down from the sky, giving a loud and unpleasant noise. Brilliant flashes of light goes by, as quickly and cruel as its sound. Horn howling, people chattering…In a split second, I see me and my bike fly up high in the sky… 
Blacker and blacker…everything turns…blacker and blacker, and empty, and painful, and…warm, strangely warm.
Darkness…, I can’t see anything but darkness…, where is all the chattering… why I can’t hear anything…, so quiet…
From somewhere, the wind comes by; gently lift me up…higher and higher…
Suddenly, I see myself; quietly walk into the darkness…I see myself looking back at me…
…Wait!!! That’s not me, or is it?! I see my eyes…my brother’s eyes…cover in tears…the same as that morning…
He‘s still looking at me…Is he trying to say good bye? Am I already dead? I feel the seed of pain growing in my heart, stinging me with its vine…Is that the feeling of dead…
I look back at him…He is still standing there, crying…why am I the one who have to suffer this? Why isn’t it you, you spoiled brat? Why?! I kneel down on my knee…burst into tears…I want to see my parents, I want to say good bye to them…I want to finish my school, to make my dreams come true…I want to live…to live…
“Khoi, are you OK? Can you hear me? Answer me….Khoi!”
It’s just a dream, oh!!! Thanks God…It’s just a nightmare…Everything will be just fine…Oh!! It’s noon already? Where is that brat? He said he is going to wait for me to get him to school on my bike…What a shame, he’s always late, I wonder when he will grow up…Dare to let me wait…Someone is going to be yelled at…Wait for that…
Arghh…another headache…I’m sure not a morning person…Gosh!!! What did I do yesterday; my eyes are so heavy…Can’t believe I’m using all of my power just to open my eyes…
But wait…why is Mom crying…where am I? This is not my room…And why am I wearing these…weird…things…all over my body...Wait!!!…Am I in a hospital?!... What happen to me?!....Where is my brother?
My mom is still crying….Is she trying to say something to me???
“Mom! Where am I? What happen? Where is my brother?
“Khoi! Your brother…because of saving you…in the accident…”
Heavier and heavier…the rain is coming down…heavier and heavier…color the world in black and white…

I see I’m running, and running…..under the rain is falling…..
I see a room cover in white, I see my dad crying…..
Why is everything so blurry and dizzy…..Are they my feelings???
Out side it’s raining…..Howl the lightning……

I see him lying there on the bed, so white…..
“We tried our best….” Said the doctor, “….his body is crushed under the car, there is nothing else we can do….”And there he goes, walking out of the room, hastily….
I fall on the ground…is that really him, lying there….in red and white…..
I can’t believe that….I dare not to believe that…that is me, that is my face, my body….my brother….trying to breathe…..heavily

Somewhere in the wind, I heard his voice….singing, singing…..
I see myself pushing him off every time he tries to touch my new clothes….
I see myself throwing the cactus away, laughing…..
He is so different…..
I see him picking up the cactus; giving it his protection…..
I see him writing a song for me with his limited words……
I see him saving money to buy me a birthday present……

Why don’t you sing, my little brother, why don’t you?!?
I know you love to, and so do I……
Please just let me hear your voice, once…just once…
Please, strengthen him my Lord!! Don’t let him lose…

I hold his hand and hug his red body, rub my nose with his…
So warm, strangely warm, is this feeling people call love…
Wake up, my brother, talk to me, sing…
Remember what you want for Christmas…We already have a list…

And a miracle happens; Khoi tries to open his mouth to tell me something. He sees me, he smiles…and starts to gather all his strength…and sing…weakly…
I smile…and cry…I dare not to look at his face…I dare not to believe that…Please tells me this is just a dream…a bad dream!!!

It’s still raining…heavily…
I heard the birds singing at dawn, waking up the forest…
I heard the waves tapping on the sand, singing the sailor’s hymn…
I heard the wind touching every single flower on the prairie…
I heard the lonesome sad…of this sky…as it cries…
I heard my brother singing…smaller and smaller…

Somewhere…outside the window…there sits a small plant…
Ugly and thorny and loveless…
Within it grows a small rose…
Beautiful and lovely and glorious…


LilCookieJar ~ Bao Nguyen