21's Legacy

Chapter 2

When mom thought that Dad will never come back home, EVER (as if she already knew it), she told me that she has a surprise for me. For a minute I thought that she'll give me the toy car that I've always wanted for my birthday. But when we rode a ship going to Davao, she left me to her best friend Meridith. She said she'll be back after three weeks.
I thought I had lost my Mom forever too. Like I'd lost my Dad.
But I was wrong.
She went back. And we went home together for her "surprise".
It was a surprise indeed when she brought in a 7 year-old boy in my room and said, "You've got a brother!" I was five back then and my idea of having a brother is a baby brother.
He has this dark brown hair and light brown eyes. His height is almost twice mine and he's got this "presence". An authoritative aura.
"Hey little brother. My name is Threin" he said enthusiastically.
I didn't say a word. I couldn't say a word. I didn't move. I couldn't move.
"Oh! How about a hug?" He plunges to me and gave me more than a hug. He lifted me high so that my feet left the ground and he literally wrestles me as I choke for three seconds. I gasped for air when he brought me down. "Nice meeting you!"
He offers me a hand. I gave him mine and he squeezed it too hard. He doesn't look like he intended it anyway.
I was happy. I'm actually very happy about having a big brother. Though it's weird. I now have someone to share my room with and maybe someone I could share my thoughts with, the things I'd like to share to my father.
I actually don't care if he's just my half brother or whatever is the story behind him. I just thought that we could be good buddies and that would be awesome.
He was fixing his stuffs when I approached him from behind. "Are you gonna sleep in my room?"
I caught him by surprise, "I didn't steal the ballll..." He jumped as if he saw a rattle snake when he heard me talk to him. "Why you? I thought you were Mom!" He faced me "And I thought you were a mute when you didn't speak a while ago."
"You stole a basketball?"
"Oooohhhkkkaayy, we'll play later. Alright? Just let me unload my stuffs and we'll play err.. trashketbol, whatever that is." He doesn't know much about earth yet.
"You don't know basketball?"
"Yeah basketball, whatever."
"I don't like basketball."
"Yeah! Good idea. Neither do I." He goes back into fixing his stuffs, "Gimme a second will yah? And we'll play uhm..." he thinks for a moment then raises a finger, "ah! Brawling! Right! Rawr!"
"I like bowling." He gave me a confused look.
"Could you please get off my nerves for one second and I promise you we'll play whatever games you play here on earth. Okay? Guhhh!" He gives up.
"Okay." Then after a while, "Are you going to sleep in my room?"
And the conversation goes on and on for another fifteen minutes, still, he hasn't answered if he's staying in my room.
And he did stayed with me in my room. At first we stayed in one bed until mom bought another bed for Threin.
We we're best of friends. We play together, we share our thoughts with each other, we eat together and we bathe together. I bring him to places I used to hang out alone and there he will tell me stories of Lorien. He would describe the Metropolis as we close our eyes.
"There are a lot of wonderful things we see when we close our eyes." He would say. "Remember when you told me about your dreams last night? The one with a golden city and golden cars and golden shoe laces? Aren't they beautiful?"
"Yes they are." I saw them again as we talked still eyes closed.
"Have I told you about the Chimæra?"
"No, what are they?"
"Haven't I? Well you see, these are animals that change their form."
I opened my eyes and turned to him, "Animals? Like Benny?" Referring to a dead dog I once owned.
"Yeah." He answered and I looked up and closed my eyes again.
"Change forms? Like what mom does?"
"Yeah, exactly. I have one Chimæra at our house. Her name is Usha. She likes being a cat. A cat that is as big as a car."
"Really? Waaahh that's so big!"
"You bet! And sometimes she turns to a...M-mouw-w-what's that thing again? Mouwl or something?" A month living on earth is not enough time to learn everything about it.
"Mouse? Like Mickey Mouse?"
"No, not the nasty crawling ones eeww.. The one that flies and makes this sound-hooo hooo hooo!"
"A horse?"
"What? Have you seen a flying horse?"
"A unicorn?" We're looking at each other now with our faces deformed from a lot of thinking.
"Huenicorn? What? No. It flies in the night and says hooo! Hooo! Hooo!"
"A black unicorn? Hooo! Hooo! Hooo!"
"What the heck is a huenicorn?"
We tried to figure out what kind of animal Usha turns into for the next hour. He jumped from description to description, and I guessed from a unicorn to a ninja. He mispronounced 90% of the words I tell him.
We were laughing, annoyed, puzzled, tired of it and all the other feelings we could feel. But the dominating feeling is that we're happy.
Simply happy.
"I wish I have a Chimæra." I just wished.

It was mom who told us that Usha turns into an OWL if she wanted to fly. And when I told her about the unicorn and that Threin had a difficulty pronouncing the word ninja, she just laughed and laughed. And we all laughed our ass out.
That was the one of the best days of our lives. Me, my Mom and my half brother, Threin.