Let me tell you the story of the two lost brothers. Out climbing one day, swimming in the open Ocean, around the bay they would paddle. In, to the rocky points. They’d slice their hands and feet, pushing with the swell of the tide. Sometimes heating against the large two tone faces. Carved from a Millenia of waves. Thumping spray into the now crescent shaped ravine. The two boys would misjudge a few times, trying to climb up and out with the swell of the tide.
Hands gripping with a lost infinity of strength. Sliding release of digits, unthinkable failure of strength. One would grunt and then splash back rejoining the surf. Only occasionally would the giddy thought of blood in the water make them both scrabble, like they were now. Elpi, spiderlike with a determined sorry face made it up the face, quickly at first, only to become considered once the lead was established and he climbed high out of the water with his brother’s dripping and pointed urchin hair. Looking up from ankle height, the latter brother blinked and breathed. Blinked and breathed. Pretending the piano their grandmother owned, was playing in the breeze. Two tone colour as far his eyes could see. Closely followed by the notions of cold and vertigo. Shaking off a shiver he continued to climb.
Neither of them were present that night around the dinner table. Though others were, to comment and feel the space. A rental had opened up next door and some jazz played, perhaps a band of coloured people, the bars were on the same street- so things were always moving. The glowing nights with their golden, browns and red. The household was between the radio music funk house and an abusive couple that never covered their top halves. They could always be seen shouting, him mostly, with straight arm gestures like a salute. Always the blinds were peeled at an angle to look in on. It’s was Like an old black and white film, the actions seemed sped up and overly played out. This would have been before sound, never a peep from her or him could be heard. The lips, manner and gesture was all out of proportion to the noise level. Maybe it was the jazz band or radio next door. Dinner was brightly lit by an 81 candle chandelier. The only piece of decadence the family had ever owned in its long and cultivated history.
The brothers gripped hands, Elpi’s right in his brother’s left. Forearm muscles wormed and sea water mixed with the sweat drawn from their climb. “A 18 meter drop was all”. Thèse are the words that rolled from others lips, as waves do, pushing and pulling at the fragile cargo of the young men. Wrapping them up, chilling and pushing, forearms bold and trembling. A look passed between them, an end to the ebbing, peace. Exhilaration as they jumped. Elpi may have lead, but he felt he jumped higher and now fell behind, slower in falling than his brother. If their arms were wings they would have glid out into the open ocean and careered forever onwards, or at least until they were smout and dashed upon a South American Coastline a full globe away. Elpi blinked and breathed. Soaking in fracture of the moment.
Thé candella that had been lit, so as to reach the chandelier wore its way low. The tide mark of melted wax grew outwards, as the light waned. All four of them had eaten and worried their bellies full. The two brothers hadn’t returned. This marked another year, eight in total since they’d gone and not come home. The stepchildren, grandchildren and friends walked about this, as if on a rug.
All muted, all covering the trap-door into a much darker pool of memory. A fathom of others unthinkable things. Bitter hope’s ‘could have beens’ in the silence. No word from them ever came. No note. The mood was still, as it always was from the date. The date since. Marked by them, and unmarked. The jazz let up, the couple went out or perhaps to bed, and the two-tone family watched as each of the 82 candles melted away, dripping themselves dry.
thecoffeetable 