Don't Remind Me

Chapter 18: The Distraction

"You realize your Resume is screwed up when you don't know what to put under the About Me section. (Is it just me, or does anyone else experience a mini existential crisis every time a prospective employer asks you to describe yourself? It would be so much easier if I were Ironman-'Genius billionaire playboy philanthropist.' ) And all of you fakers putting 20-hours of community service in the extra-curricular section, lemme just say this: Accidentally throwing an empty juice packet in a trash-bin once upon a time, doesn't constitute as community service..." -(Nitty Gritty, Issue No 801, December '14)

They say misfortune never comes alone. 

This past week cannot be better proof of this statement. 

It started when I woke up to these three awful words.

Zaif shot Musa. 

And then it just kept getting worse. 

"You're lying." I muttered to my mother, before leaving her alone in the foyer. I started searching for my brother. Manically. Anything at all to confirm his presence. When I shoved the door to his room open, my heart seized with joy for the briefest of moments. His dark-green hand-carry was lying abandoned near the bed. Unzipped. As if he'd just grabbed something from it and left it there in a hurry. 

I was shivering with cold, and fear when I tugged it open. 

A Metallica T-shirt, spare toothbrushes, shaving cream, and two bags of chocolates. 

I choked back a sob when I saw the names scrawled on each bag. "For Laylee" and "For Super Mario". 

"He's gone." Mama says from the doorway. Her eyes oddly bright with emotion. "Gone back to the States for now. He could get in serious trouble over here , if he stayed..."

"How could he shoot someone last night Mama? He was with me the whole time! We stayed up late and watched three movies. If he was thinking about killing people yesterday, don't you think I'd know about it?" My voice got higher with every hysterical sentence, as I tried to stop the tears. Mama's face is an expressionless mask of ice. She really doesn't handle these wayward emotions all that well...

"He didn't do it last night, honey. He did it years ago." Mama sighs, as she explains haltingly. Each word seems wrenched from her very heart. "In his defense, he was just being a good brother...and technically, he didn't pull the trigger. One of our ex-security guards did..."

"This doesn't make any sense. Musa is obviously not dead! we would have heard about it over the news..."

"That's because the bullet hit his right side. It damaged some nerves when it passed through his flesh, and he lost the use of his right arm...."

"I don't believe you." I kept saying throughout her explanation. My brother can't commit such an act of violence. No matter the reason. I just refuse to accept it. "I want to talk to him. I don't believe you."

Mama's account of this surreal incident refused to seep into my image of my brother. But more than that, I couldn't believe that they had kept something like this under wraps for three years! According to my mother, Zaif came to hear something Musa said about me (drunkenly), to a bunch of their mutual friends. When he confronted Musa outside his Golf Club, the resulting scuffle turned violent. In this confusion, one of our old security guards actually complied with Zaif's heated orders and shot Musa. It must have been our lucky day, because the bullet didn't kill him. A perverse part of me secretly wishes that it had. 

"Your father payed through his nose to hush up the matter. The security guard in question was smuggled out of the country. He also-unwillingly-poured money into Khadim Shah's campaign fund for his second reelection. The Shah family only agreed to drop the criminal case because we assured them that, in retaliation, we would bring up charges of our own..." Mama eyed me hesitatingly at this point.