My kid brother died Aug 2, 2005. This is his lay.
This too is his lay, only written as a scene for a Creative non-fiction workshop on Aug 2, 2018, inspired by the excellent Inara Verzemnieks, a professor extraordinaire. (and the only person who has ever praised me for writing silences, which has perplexed me).
It is a blue beer-can.
A blue, sweating, silvery, fragile can, well-hidden from the prying eyes of the adults. He proudly produces it from behind the sofa (and how exactly has he kept the beer so cool, it is summer after all).
The sauna is over, and we sit there, in the greying dusk, and quietly, ever so carefully, open the can.
– Not a fan of lager, I say.
– It’s good anyway, he says.
– Does Mother know?
– No.
– Oh.
We drink in silence, sharing gulps of hop-flavoured amber. After the sauna, beer is good. And the consideration.
– We should meet more, he says. I grunt in response.
– So…When are you coming?
– Don’t know. What will I do there? he says.
The dusk thickens, and silences stretch deep as the birch roots that give our home its name.
His hands tremble a little from the hard work on the farm.
– Let’s go set some traps for the fish, I say.
He rises.
One day, I will write about water-lilies and rabbit babies, and little furry things, and killing. And the land that eats. That will be another day, in the book of the Midnight’s table.
