3am product

this is a short story i woke up with at three am this morning. i felt it deserved to be written and i publish it for critique.

We were twins
Fred Olsson
2009

We were brought out to the cold a perfect match. We kept each other warm all those childhood nights full of darkness and terrifying dreams. We had our differences, but we understood one another, that is what I thought. But I see now it was all comforting words without the honesty they portrayed.

“Reoh, you can’t cross this bridge alone.” I heard his statement ringing in my ears. My two minutes older brother Larry had the same calculating voice as always. But I could hear the emptiness in it. It wasn’t that the words lacked thought, because he was right in his statement. It was more the lack of understanding that this could not be understood. It was an answer to my request for some quality time on my own. My wish for a calm, uncalculated life. But as always he needed to be by my side, hanging over my shoulder, judging my creations.

We moved from the small town where we were born, seeking redemption in the big city. Correction; I sought redemption and Larry was looking for a job. And a job he found, he dragged us both down in it. Telemarketing, the devils disguise. I sold nothing, my lack of interest in both money and the product we were selling blocked my will to even try. Larry didn’t do any better. He gave it a few tries but after two weeks we decided this was a dead end. The fact that Larry found as little satisfaction in the work as I did filled me with hope, maybe we weren’t so different after all?

We walked aimlessly through moments of desperation and happiness. I felt on top of the world, gliding through existence with only my visions of the future to guide me. But I could feel how it was slowly consuming Larry. He was in a state of numbness the last month we spent in the city, and I wondered what this meant.
“Great news Reoh, we got a new job!” His beaming smile once again blocked my true vision and we moved back to our home town, where the job he talked about was waiting. Stationed at a great mill, we were chopping down life and selling it by the meter. Larry who felt like he was contributing was ecstatic, with money on his pocket and a new vision of the future he soared through space without a care in the world. I had made up my mind, this was the last time he would flourish.

“I know what you’ve been thinking..” He said with calm in his voice. I looked up at him and met his eyes. I knew what was about to take place, and so did he. He wasn’t sad about it, in fact he looked quite pleased. He smiled and continued “So you’ve made up your mind?”

“I have…” I replied with a faint smile. A tear forming at the corner of my eye, growing and finally succumbing to gravity it left a trail on my cheek in which the feelings could pour out. Larry raised an empty glass and called for a toast. “To sanity!” He boasted. I laughed and picked up the gun. And as he downed the empty glass I raised my left hand and blew him away.