A warm breeze blows down the shadowy suburban street, sending spiraling swirls of summer foliage streaming into the starry sky. Identical houses, lengthy and beige, line either side of the dark asphalt road. The yards poorly maintained, with shoddy iron furniture spotting the concrete patios that bordered patches of dead grass and dirt. Each house sits on roughly the same sized plot of land, every yard encompassed within a fence, but the fences are neither white nor picket. Their iron bodies instead emit a dull gray hue, both uninspired and uninspiring. Some taller than others, and some better maintained, but nonetheless all are the same. To some the angled iron symbolizes safety and protection from the dangers of the outside world; to others they are no more than the bars of a prison.
A young man walks briskly down the sidewalk, clutching a crimson briefcase in his arms. The breeze picks up speed as it pushes brown and red oak leaves around his bare ankles. He makes his way through the quiet streets, giving the occasional nod. He dons a light brown coat with a gray shirt underneath and navy-blue denim jeans. The coat is mangled, having been stretched and shrunk so many times that it has permanent wrinkles around the midriff. Where the coat is undamaged, inked markings take the place of scars, the meaning of which are difficult to make out. The briefcase is heavy, filled to the brim with what can only be assumed to be the heaviest of metals. As the young man deftly maintains his grip on the crimson briefcase, his deliberate steps send a series of sharp clacks echoing off the beige walls and gray concrete.
He approaches a house, a familiar one, although based on his expression and the lack of change in his demeanor, one would not have guessed that he spent some of his most formative childhood years here. The house is no different than the others, plain and boring, but the fence is taller than most and even extends underground. Four feet high, one foot deep, no way over, no way under. An old woman rushes out of the door of the house in a quiet frenzy. She moves as quickly as her creaking bones will let her, determined to meet the young man at the iron gate. She locks the gate and places her hands on top, expecting an attack and bracing for assault.
An assault that never came. When the young man tries to speak the old woman shrieks. A verbal battle ensues as the two unleash generations of burden onto one another, but neither gives any ground, never moving nor breaking. As the vociferous voice of the old woman rips through the air, the young man raises and presents his crimson briefcase, bursting at the seams from excess paper. He places it atop the gate, shielding himself from the words, shielding himself from the hurt. The burden that the young man had carried for so long suddenly becomes his saving grace as the old woman’s voice bounces away from him, unable to pierce the thickness of the hardened leather.
“How could you do this to me?!” she hollered, as if she were the victim of a nefarious plot. “Me! Me! Me!”
Having had enough, the young man reaches for the small golden latch on top of the briefcase, the latch holding it all together, and releases its reservoir. One after another, the papers flow to the ground, an endless stream of black and white spinning at the old woman’s feet. They pour and pour out of his briefcase and onto her stained concrete porch, a considerable and unforgiving tide.
Eventually, the flow resides, and the wind picks up the papers, carrying away all of the words and emotions the young man had guarded for so long – now spilled and spread for all to see. The old woman stands stone-faced, teary-eyed, and trembling. The look in her eye shifts between pity and frustration as she utters the only words of advice she can think to offer him…
“Be a man.”
The words rip through the air, faster than a bullet, but there is no saving grace this time, nothing to hide behind. The young man stumbles away from the gate, shaken by the quickness of her response and chilled by the frigidity of her words. Doing his best to maintain his composure, the young man staggers against the iron gate and steadies himself. He glances toward the briefcase in his hand, the sting of dismissal and betrayal emanating from his chest as he inhales an unsteady breath. He takes a moment to think…to gather himself before placing the briefcase down at the bottom of the gate. It is not his problem anymore. A child runs out of the front door and cries, “Brother!”
The young man looks at the small boy, still so innocent and worthy of a future. Worthy of a future devoid of hatred and fear. Worthy of a life lived with his trusted brother at his side.
“It’s not his fault,” the young man thinks. That child deserves better.
“Don’t let them ruin you, kid,” he yells back as he dusts off his coat, and continues along the sidewalk, no longer hindered by his crimson burden.
bryton.
The Writings of Bryton Chain 