Waiting Out The Storm

When I was big enough my parents let me go with Rupilee to one of the collectives at the edge of the ocean. It would be fourteen days before we made it back when it was supposed to take only six. The storm we were caught in blew us off track and it took Rupilee longer than he thought it would to get us out. I was useless. I had never been so far away from home nor was I used to the physical exertion. For four days Rupilee hacked a trail through shoulder deep snow, over mangled forests and across sheets of ice that were as smooth as glass. He built us shelters to sleep in and found us enough food and more. I hadn't known that he knew how to move through the snow and that he carried ice picks in his sack. Suddenly he wasn't my brother anymore, who could pin me so effortlessly in wrestling or who could run faster than I could, he was an adult, he took care of me, he knew things I didn't know. He worked with the men and he ate with the men and now suddenly he was a man. I was still a boy. I bawled when my legs got tired and I refused to eat the dinner he made me. I had a temper tantrum when he wouldn't let me out of the shelter in the middle of the storm and I fell asleep sitting against the entrance. When I woke up I was on the mat that he carried and under a blanket that he carried. I would have been dead if I had been out there alone, but I made it a point to ignore him for awhile when we got home anyway. All of a sudden I was alone. I had to play by myself or go and find that fat Strubbe kid and play with him. I began to disagree with Rupilee about everything, simply out of principle. Those arguments turned into real disputes as I got older and I still can't be sure if I really did disagree with his ideas or that I just did it out of spite, to punish him for growing up faster than I did.

I think he would like this place now. He always dreamt of the future, and a way to improve things. He would appreciate this, these people who have carved out the earth to build factories and who leveled entire forests to build another forest out of steel and stone. I hate them and I hate what they've done to this place. As the years go by I become more convinced that I should have died and he should have lived. I wander from pole to pole using everything Rupilee taught me and I know that what he did out of necessity, I do out of guilt. He has trapped me here in a strange dream out of his imagination, unable to wake up because my own imagination has so long been stilled.

I do have some hope, though. I just have to outlive these parasites. That shouldn't be a problem. I've managed to outlive everyone else, haven't I.