As the news may lead you to believe, I am not missing.
Gabriel Leroux, the prodigal brother, was writing on a notepad with his favorite mechanical pencil. His handwriting was in shambles; his trembling right hand spawned snaking consonants and meandering vowels that wandered beyond their respective lines. He often steered clear of writing on real paper with real pencils or pens, because paper inevitably meant a trail, and a trail was the very last thing that Gabriel needed. But the doctors had told him to write, so that's what he did.
His left arm had been amputated about three inches above his elbow. His cerebellum was damaged, so he walked with a cane even though he was barely twenty-two years old, and the hand that was still attached to his limber body shook and twitched constantly, making it a battle for Gabriel to write, let alone type. His motor skills had declined, wearing away day after day. He kept a bottle of painkillers by his bed since he often woke up in the middle of the night with migraines that made him wish he was dead.
I'd file for disability, but I'm supposed to be missing, Gabriel forced his right hand to scrawl out letters, a word, a sentence.
All because of my dearest older brother, and that damned baseball bat. He erased the word "dearest" after a twitch in his hand made the last half of the word look like a latter incarnation of Nixon's signature, then re-wrote it.
He smiled, and, not without difficulty, wrote another sentence.
But I am not missing- far from it, I'd say.
Actually, I do believe I've found myself.
