Concerning the Tombstone

  Wet footprints absorbing rainwater, pooling in from the marred sod. Taylor’s sprint-gouged puddles in the moist cemetery grass, marking his path back to the grave-site. Fittingly, it had begun to rain again, not in the contumelious volume of before, but the patient, dogmatic drizzle intent on saturation.
  Hunting, dodging amongst the headstones, a revenant on some desperate haunt, finally coming to one where the ground was still muddy clay, bullet-marks of splattered mud staining the lower half. Taylor wiped a mass of streaming hair from his eyes with a film of water, squatting by the granite. He felt he knew something coming he couldn’t catch, like Scrooge’s apprehension in the cemetery of Christmas Future. He tried to brush the defacing muddy water from a simple inscription, two dates and a name, and then he knew.
  There was Russell’s name.
  His name. Taylor’s name. Seldom used, seldom required, as it was just a connotation to something that no longer existed for him, a universe as completely foreign as bucolic Americana.
  Apart from Russell.
  And here was Russell.
  He had wondered why everyone kept bringing up their remorse like it mattered to him, and now he remembered why.
  His brother. How was it he could have forgotten? Easily enough, but only through Eric. And suddenly it hit him, like he had been trying to hold shut the bulging closet door and it overcame. Eric lied. He had betrayed Russell, and then lied about its relevance. Eric deceived him, took advantage of his problems, kept him emotionless for personal gain. Used him. He had transgressed the spiritual bond, severed the link in selfishness. Closer than brothers, he said. Family didn’t lie, cheat or steal. Eric was a bastard.
  Hatred, hot and argent, flowed through him, following by an deluge of childish bewilderment, confusion, a feeling of hurt isolation. The bond, the line was gone, like a mooring snapping from the ship, and Taylor knew he was alone. Everything he knew was a lie, faced alone.
  He fell into the tombstone, crushing the few burdened flowers, and cried, when he wasn’t laughing.