Cotton Fields

I've learned all these years to love and care. My first six years of freedom and serenity. The first 6 Christmases and summers were the best. Until that foul thing came. The death swifted in the air, down the shriveling trees, and in the graveyard of flowers. It dwelled in the sewers and fed on rats and mice, even drank its disgusting waters. Its been living here, on our porch, in our minds, since the beginning of my brother.
Yes, yes, my brother had brought it with him. When he was born, June 5th 1919, we were all doomed to this day on. Road leads onto way, and time leads to guilt. It was a revolution! More of a repulsion.
--June 5th 1919--
It was a somewhat sunny day, but the night was dark and foul. The ghouls ran in the streets, still desperate in need of help. It's only been about a year that the war had ended. That massive destruction and decadence. And with it came my brother. My mother sat in the ruins of the hospital waiting her turn to be bred. Screaming and aching, my brother was hurting her from the inside. Soon enough a woman took her in to deliver that monster inside of her.
I hoped that my brother wouldn't be born on this day. I prayed with all my heart! After all it was MY birthday today and I didn't want him to steal that from me.
--June 6th 1919--
It was the next day, the day I was excited about. I will soon see my brother, I said to myself, not knowing that what had been brought to this world was not human.
I looked at his shriveled body, and tried to figure which way was up and which was down. He has 1 eye, and looked like my pet toad, after he died. He had lost one hand, and had one leg shorter than the other. His face was flat, but had a huge nose big and red like a tomato.
I looked at him and tried to figure out if I should be happy my brother is born, or not.
A doctor came in and tried explaining why my sibling had those horrid features. It turned out that my mother had stage 2 skin cancer that has spread to her kidney and ovary, thus she can no longer get me one of those monsters.
--June 5th 1920--
It was my 7th birthday, only born a few days apart from my brother, I felt like a completely different human. At least he wasn't even human. My mother had just come home and I was out in the cotton field playing with straws of wheat, trying to make wreaths of daisies.
As I entered the house the whole family smiled with a big cake and started chanting happy birthday. They did not approach me, no, all they did was sing and cut the cake, and eat! They did not congratulate me nor had they given me a single present because the party wasn't even for me, no, it was for my brother. His first year alive and I had hated that!
It was my birthday too, at least should I have received a kiss on the cheek. All the attention was on him.
Later that night, thanks to my prayers to the lord, my mother met me in my room and handed me a wrapped gift. Happy Birthday honey, she said. I hurried into opening to see what it was, and when I did I felt my brain pounding on my skull trying to break loose and at least hemorrhaging so that I could die. It was a photo album of my brother.
--June 6th 1920--
My brother still hasn't gotten a name. The pathetic charm runs in my family. A fetish it was, every new born child having an older sibling should be named by that sibling. It was my job to name him and I haven't for a year now.
I usually call him "it" or "that" or even "the thing" and that has brought treason to my family.
I thought it was time, time to put the awkwardness and weirdness behind us.
I'll call him Marlo, like my old pet toad.
--June 5th 1923--
4 years since this creature was born and it has brought hell to my life. The last day of school, I looked to the sky and tried breathing in the fresh summer air, but I kept remembering how this year was the worst of all. I had lost all my friends because they thought my brother was too weird. All my teachers now give me special attention which makes me the teacher's pet. My grades have risen for no apparent reason, thus my classmates stopped even talking to me.
I have been cut and bruised by the bullies, and my parents haven't even shed a tear on what had happened to me. They cared too much for Marlo and none for me.
It was time for revenge, but I had to wait till he was grown enough.
--June 5th 1927--
He was 8 and I was 13, finally a teen, somewhat independent. And I have been planning revenge since I was 9, since I lost all my friends, since my parents stopped caring about me.
3 cases, I thought to myself. 3 ways I could kill Marlo.
CASE 1:June 6th '27
I wore my old black pajamas and covered my face with a paper bag. I discretely tiptoed to Marlo's room on the far east of our wooden farm house.
The wind was crisp and dry and you could hear it play with the cotton fields and blades of wheat. The trees were high and old waving their arms to the night sky thanking the moon for its graciousness. The stars twinkled in amaze and shone bright piercing the dark navy sky. The wooden planks under my feet squeaked in harmony as death heard me calling. It heard me venture into Marlo's room and hear my plea of help.
I looked down, standing on the foot of the bed, to IT. not knowing where to start I crossed my heart praying that god would forgive my deadly sin. I was awaiting death but had never arrived, so I went on. I took the soft white pillow and gently placed it over his head pressing it against his face. He twisted and resisted and fought for his life. I need you death where are you, I spoke to myself. He started shaking and banging on the side of the bed when a big figure had grabbed me and threw me out of the house.
My dad held a riffle to my head, not knowing it was me he shouted, GET OUT OF HERE OR I'LL SHOOT YOU!
I ran to the cotton fields and thought of another plan.
CASE 2:June 8th '27
My parents were not suspicious, after all I was the "loving and kind" brother to Marlo. Took him everywhere I went. Made him eat his vegetables and took him for a shower and even reminded him to brush his teeth. I loved Marlo, but he had ruined my life.
My next plan was flawless, something no one would have thought of.
I went into town, down the markets, searching for the perfect ingredient for my death wish.
H2SO4, or sulfuric acid.
I would use it in Marlo's water, like this I would get rid of him.
Luckily, I had found a pint and was on my way home.
For supper I helped mom set the table. I filled 4 glasses with water and had placed a torn paper under the poisoned one.
Dinner, my mother called, and as everyone sat on the table I made sure Marlo sat where the trap had been set.
I waited impatiently for him to take a sip, but he wouldn't. Until,...
Mother had already finished her glass and had asked my father to get her another one.
Why don't you take Marlo's for now and I'll get him another later, is that okay Marlo? My father suggested.
I felt the tension build up, and I saw death entering the house by the open window.
NO, I screamed. STOP MOM! what is it sweety?
Don't drink from that.
My father looked angry and dragged by the hand to the kitchen as he yelled at me saying,
You shut up now mister! If you're brother was Bron like this doesn't mean a single second he's less worthy of you, you understand me!? Now stop acting like an ass and let us have dinner peacefully for once in our lifetime! Noe go up to your room you are not welcome anymore young man.
I tried dealing with him, but he wouldn't understand.
So be it. Death was already here.
In my bedroom I could feel the floor shake. I peered in from the stairs and saw my mother vomiting blood. Thick red pearls of ruby blood.
I did not feel remorseful, nor sad, she had brought this upon her, not a single tear had I shed, not one.
CASE 3:June 5th '28
Assassination.
Noun. The action of assassinating someone.
Synonyms: murder, slaughter, homicide, execution, killing, butchery, extermination, termination, elimination, liquidation,...

It was a full-proof plan.
100% successful.
I had created the era of the devil. It was in my genes, since my father was a hunter, I did not mind the thought of death not mine not anyone's. I was an murderer, a killer, an assassin.
I was a psycho.
And case 3 was the golden age of the devil era.
Good luck to me, and to Marlo.

Hey Marlo! Wanna play in the cotton field? , I exclaimed as I dragged him by his one hand out to the porch. He followed my steps through the rocky patch and we started singing and playing.
I taught him how to make the daisy wreaths.
But at around noon I saw a dark cloud floating, making it's way towards us. It was death.
I knew it was time, but I had to take him as far away from the house.
I took out my father's shaving straight razor and started running to Old Man's River.
The cloud got closer, as the joy on my brother's face got greater.
I stood and waited for him to come, slowly, slowly.
He could not run because of his legs.
I started backing up a little and then sprinted again.

I tripped, my shoe got stuck under a tree root.
I flew to the ground, and could almost see everything in slow motion.
I felt Marlo stop running and stare at me.
I fell head first to the ground as my skull shattered as it hit the sharp rock. I couldn't move anymore.
I stared at him and he stared at me. I was paralyzed.
Then everything went dark, for a long while.

CASE 4:
There was no case 4.
I died that day, the day of my 19th birthday.
Death hadn't cone for Marlo, it had come for me.

I could not see the light when I died, why?
Maybe because of my foul language and acts.
Maybe because I was such a moron.
Marlo grew up to be an amazing doctor.
In his 30s he got a metallic hand.
And now I'm sitting in this dark place, even scarier than Hell. It's 2016 and my brother died long ago, but I do not see him with me, nor in hell.
Turns out I was wrong, my brother was not a demon, a creature, sent from Hell.
He was God's angel, his favorite.
And ever since I have felt contrite.