Little Infinities

Epidemic

I wrote this a few years ago,

I edited it and rewrote it and I still don't think it's my best. 

Bear with me. I can't write Sci-Fi stuff. That's not me.

The dialect they use in this is called Kriol. It's an informal language we use here in Belize. 

Hope you guys Enjoy :)

Cheybear

An epidemic broke out a few years ago.

No one knew what it was. Children ran around screaming for their mothers and fathers.

Their parents trying to calm them down, not realizing that their child didn't recognize his own face.

"this isn't me." A six year old would cry, staring at his reflection in the mirror. A little girl of age 5 screams every time she comes across a reflective surface.

Doctors didn't know how to handle the situation. In a small country like Belize, there was no way they could. The knowledge of advanced medicine was a taboo in Belize. The doctors thought they knew every disease known to man, and every disease had some type of cure. Whether it be bush medicine, astrological fantasies, religious methods or plain old science, there was always a 'cure'.

"It's a active imagination, keep him inside for a day or two. It should wear off." said every single doctor.

And, not knowing any better, My parents did exactly that. Keeping their child inside for days on end, no contact with anyone but a parent and their thoughts. The sickness manifested and ate at young children's minds.

A month later, screams from my baby brother woke my parents in the middle of the night. They raced to the bathroom, finding my 7 year old brother in front of the mirror, a razor blade in his tiny hand and 3 long cuts stretching from his forehead to his chin. The white tiles of the bathroom floor were stained with blood as my baby brother screamed at his reflection.

"You're not me! Stop copying me!" His little hand trembling as he went to make another slash in his face. In an instant my parents were holding his arm away from his face and his face was smothered in my mother's chest.

I was left standing in the doorway. I saw my mother with tears streaming down her face holding her only son's bleeding face. I could see my dad trying to be strong for her, even though tears were in his eyes as well. I ran to the phone, calling an ambulance for my baby brother. My voice shaked and I stuttered on my words, but the ambulance came sooner than expected. The medics came into my house and took him to the ambulance, my parents clambering behind them. The ambulance sounded their sirens, and we were all rushed to the hospital.

I looked down at my brother's face, his own tears were present in his dark brown eyes, and the cuts had stopped bleeding. They were red, swollen and one of them would definitely need stitches. He looked mortified, as if he saw someone who really wasn't himself in the mirror. He began to say something, but the ambulance came to a stop and he was carried to the hospital in such a rush.

He screamed at the medics that he didn't want to go in there because 'he' would be in there, and when asked who 'he' was, no adult believed him.

The 'he' which my brother saw in the mirror, was a nine year old with bloodred eyes, or so he described him. The 'he' was almost like a replica of his stature, if it wasn't for the bloodred eyes and creepy smile which he wore when copying him.

I sat outside my brother's hospital room, my head in my hands and my elbows on my knees. None of it was making sense. My parents and I saw that there was nothing wrong with my brother's reflection. Maybe there was something that I was missing, something that made him see what he was seeing. Was something wrong with my baby brother's brain? Was he actually sick?

I refused to believe it. There had to be some cure for it. Someway to get him to stop looking at himself that way. I was so busy thinking, that I didn't see the doctor rush into the room.I didn't realize that my brother was thrashing in his hospital bed. When I finally heard him screaming, he was on his way to a room in the hospital called "the white room"

I didn't even know they had those in the public hospital. The only place I ever saw those were on T.V. Then again, mental illness was also a taboo here in this little country. People went there to die.

"Why are they sending him there? Isn't that where crazy people go until they stop talking or screaming or-" I was frantically running after my parents as they walked with him toward that "white room". He was screeching and the doctors had to strap him down so he didn't hurt himself. My mom was crying harder than she was before and my dad didn't even care about the tears running off his chin. The doctors rounded a corner and I ran toward them, being pulled back by my parents. My mom still had on her bloodstained night gown, and my dad was still holding the razor. I needed to go to my brother.

"We'll come back tomorrow, dear." My dad said, wiping the tears from his chin.

Tomorrow never came for my parents. It hurt too much for them to go see their only son go crazy in a padded hospital room. I, on the other hand, went to see my baby brother everyday for the next two years. I watched him go even crazier, helpless to stop that damned sickness from eating at his mind.

When he turned nine, his eyes were bloodshot, and he wore the creepiest smile when I would visit him. The scars where he slashed his face still visible. He rocked back and forth, singing a song that my mom used to sing around the house. My parents long forgot him. I had a little sister now, and they kept her under lock and key. Nothing would happen to their little girl, but I never forgot their little boy. I never forgot the crazy in his eyes when the medics hauled him away and my heart longed for my innocent brother.

I was lost in my thoughts, and didn't notice my brother up against the glass looking at where I sat outside. The intercoms of the hospital carried his voice through the empty halls of this ward.

"Gyal right. You dah my big sista chu?" He pointed at me, the grin spreading across his face.

"Weh Mammy? and Daddy? They forget me chu? Suh dah why you still deh ya?" His smile was infectious, I thought I had my baby brother back, and I started laughing.

"I miss yuh Juni. Things dah nuh the same home." I said to him. This time he started laughing. This was the first time he talked to me in two years. My heart filled that he still recognized me.

But as quickly as the recognition was there, I watched it fade. He continued to laugh, and he picked at his fingernails and sat in the middle of the room. His eyes seemed to be bleeding now, and the creepy grin was back. This wasn't my brother. No amount of recognition would change that. He's not my brother. He was the thing he saw in the mirror all those years ago.

My brother wasn't coming back.