The Witness

Chapter Nine

When I woke up again, it was 9:35 in the morning. The house smelled of eggs, spices, toasted bread, and more that I couldn't describe. Breakfast. I walked out of my room after changing and went to the kitchen. I found Tristan (of course) cooking lots of breakfast and tasting some of them. I was surprised he was able to balance himself on a crutch and cook. I walked up to the table and saw that there were 5 platters and he was still cooking and it was unbelievable. "Tristan, did you actually cook all of these?" I asked, still baffled.

"No, I only cooked the french toast, the hash browns, and the pancakes. Mom made the omelette and the huge breakfast burrito. I'm also making one more thing, but it's a surprise, so you can't look," he said ecstatically. He looked very jumpy and he was definitely not half as happy as before. I loved how my 28 and almost 29 year old brother, which was older than me, acted like such a tween. But something inside him had changed and I was worried for him. I hoped that he was okay. I'll talk to him about it after breakfast, I said to myself. I got myself a seat at the sofa, bringing two plates over. I told Tristan to get the food and sit down at the sofa as soon as he was done with the rest of the food. I was bored, so I turned on the TV and looked for a good show to watch. Luckily, the Simpsons was on, so I started watching and laid onto the couch.

"Hey, get off some of the sofa so I can sit!" Tristan exclaimed, poking me. I whipped my eyes at him and got up to a sitting position so he could sit down. He got all the five dishes along with a huge... thing covered by a towel. I left that aside and got one of everything and started to eat. Of course, everything was good, so I savored every bite. Tristan got more of Mom's side and I got more of Dad's. If only he was still around.

Dad had died six years ago from heart disease and had a cardiac arrest when he was at work one day. There were more than 300 people at his funeral and it showed me how many people actually knew Dad compared to how many I thought he knew (which was at most 150). I started shoving more food in my mouth to forget about it and almost swallowing chunks of food. I finished much earlier than Tristan and got seconds and finished those right after Tristan finished his first serving of food. I got thirds of the breakfast burrito and french toast because I wanted to have more grains for some odd reason. I watched more of The Simpsons and laughed somewhat shamelessly, since I had so much food in my mouth. After I finished breakfast, I got myself some soy milk and I drank a cup pretty slowly and waited for Tristan patiently.

"Okay! I'm done! Now it's time to unveil the secret!" Tristan started for the towel as he said that, wiping his mouth impatiently. He told me to close my eyes and I did. A moment later, he said, "Open sesame." I stared at it and I asked Tristan, "What exactly is in the box?"

"That's for you to figure out yourself." I opened the box and gasped. It was vinyls of all my favorite. I loved collecting vinyls and as my brother, he knew that very well. There was the Yellow Submarine album, some songs I liked as a child, but there were so many, I bet it would play for more than a whole hour. I hugged him and accidentally hurt his leg in the process. I thanked him and put the discs in my bag. Tristan said, "I think we should leave now. It'd be too much of a pain for Mom to cook us a meal again." I nodded and ran to her room to get a piece of paper to make sure she wouldn't get scared by our absence. I wrote ten words and ten words only: We left. See you later. I'll call you later today. I then remembered about my conversation with Tristan and tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, bro, your so bouncy today. You're almost never this ecstatic. Did something happen at the hospital?" I asked.

"Oh, right! I meant to tell you! I had a dream at the hospital where Mahala told me not to be sad, that her death shouldn't have brought me so much sadness. She said that I should be happy like before and that her death should've only been a minor inconvenience. It kind of taught me to be happier about life, don't you think?" he asked.

"Okay. So let me get this straight. You had a dream where you met like a ghost of Mahala and she told you all of this?"

"Yep!"

"Okay, that's all I wanted to know." I put the paper on the floor and we both left.

We called up a taxi and we told him to drive us to our complex. When we got there, I was asking Tristan how he found all the vinyl discs and he told me how he got it from this one dude in an antique shop for only 120 bucks for all 42 of them. It was funny how easily he got them, from this 'dude from an antique shop'. I giggled about it until I saw our apartment door. It was painted neon green and had a note pinned on the door. It read, "I never wanted to hurt you, but it's your fault. It's your fault for supporting those sons and daughters of infidels. They killed our people! our families! My mother! And you still supported them. You've gone to the dark side, Tristan."