My little brother died today. In front of me. Just flopped off the couch like a sack of potatoes.
Like nothing.
Is this how people used to live? Like inevitable sacks of potatoes?
It hasn't hit me yet. Death. It's not a concept we think
about much anymore. I'm told it's permanent. I know it is. I've seen animals die. I've squashed bugs.
Dying is so undignified. Leave it to the bugs. Not to boys with playbox sand between their toys and washable marker on their palms.
My brother isn't a bug. Wasn't. Frankie is a wasn't now. I will never get used to this.
I put the piano stool back on its feet. I'd knocked it over when I heard Frankie scream and I ran to him.
It looks good on its feet. Proper.
Frankie had shoes that lit up when he walked - like red fireflies trapped in white rubber soles. I wonder if Mom and Dad will bury him in those shoes. I think he'd like that, but I don't know.
"Milt?"
It's my mom. She sounds like she's in the kitchen.
"Yeah?"
"Come in here."
When I walk to the kitchen, I step over the spot where Frankie died. I don't let my feet touch it. Like the game Frankie loved to play. One of us would shout "The floor is lava!" and we'd spend the next half an hour jumping from the chair to the couch and using Dad's old psychology textbooks as tiny islands to gap the space between. That spot - it's like permanently lava now.
My mom's face is red and streaked, and her eyes are puffy. She looks really young right now. She's 35 - which is young for a mom of a sixteen year old, but it's like I never really noticed until now. Without saying anything, she hands me her Ipad.
I take it.
I read the open tab.
Frankie wasn't the only person who died today. Not by freaking long shot.
YOU ARE READING
The Killing Chords
Teen FictionNobody in fifteen year old Violet Crocker's world has died in seven years. The last person died on the last day she played piano with her aunt. Until today...until Milt's little brother. Now healthy people are dying by the thousands. Violet hasn't...
