As a child I would hold two magnets against each other so that the poles were the same. They would not come together with all me efforts. It was like a metal ball had formed between the two, pushing my fingers away. Then, when I flipped one of them over, they would snap together—pulled by fate as though there was nothing else they could do. If I happened to put my finger between the two they would hurt me and I cried out, throwing them down. They would scatter on the floor and, if the opposing sides faced each other, pull together unharmed by all obstacles. I realized much later that people are the same way.

I made this realization in the small Southern town of Coppermills. I lived in a two-story home built forty years prior with my little brother named Matthew. He was a very quiet, sensitive, and docile boy unlike me. I was loud, proud, and I got in fights even when I meant well.

Matthew and I shared a room on the upper floor of the room. We peered out the window on rainy days. He read and I leaned on my palm, watching the rain drops slide down the glass. Sometimes when two drops would fall at once, I would race them with my eyes, choosing a side and hoping it reached the bottom of the window first. When it did I smile, as did my reflection in the dark and moody sky. When it didn't I found another pair of raindrops to watch. And, when they met in the middle and became one drop I was overwhelmed by a strange feeling. They reminded me, peculiarly, of two shadows of birds on the ground that, as the birds swooped closer, and because of the strange evening light, turned out be only one bird. I felt fooled. The rain drops had been cut in two and had come together at last.

Even if I, Alfred F. Jones, was too loud at times and tended to jump to conclusions, I still liked to sit quietly and think and make these metaphors, weaving them as easily as a girl braids her hair.

But that was something my brother and I shared in common. We could sit next to each other, watching the same leaf float down the river by our house or watch the wind brush the grass and think quietly for hours upon hours. We never felt bored in each other's company. Just like those magnets we snapped together. We got in fights sometimes, too. But those were like my finger between the magnets, and when the problem, the finger, was pulled away because our bond squeezed so hard we'd snap back together.

And, if Matthew and I bonded well, there were people I wanted to be near but we just didn't match. No matter how hard I pushed the pieces together we never came near one another. One of these happened to be an older boy named Arthur. I was fifteen then, he was seventeen. I don't know what I liked about him. Everything should have set me against him. I should have hated him. He was grouchy, pugnacious, unruly, and often very rude and pessimistic. Yet I found myself constantly annoying him and trying to get his attention in various ways. I'd make a joke to a friend just too loud to hope he overheard, or I would say something aloud when next to him in the vain hope of getting his attention.

Of course whenever I did this he either ignored me or shot me a dirty look telling me to be quiet. It didn't bother me too much. I just laughed or smiled at him and continued what I was doing. For a year, when he was a senior and I was a sophomore at the same high school, I played dumb. I didn't know what got into my mind that made me pretend I wasn't smart and in fact chastise anyone who was. But I went up to him and asked him for help. He usually offered it, since he was trying to make a good impression on the school and earn the position of valedictorian. I knew the material, but I forced myself to forget. It was like squeezing water from a fabric. No matter how hard you strain the material will remain damp unless you blow hot air on it or leave it alone, which I couldn't do since I was running out of time. In a few months he would be in college, probably going back to England, and I would be alone in the school. Well, that wasn't all that true. Matthew would still be there. But I couldn't care much about him.

Sometimes, I learned this, when you focus on something you think matters, what really does matter becomes forgotten. That hurt me in the long time. Matthew eventually assumed that I had forgotten him and lapsed into a deep, sorrowful silence. And, all that year as I vainly tried to impress Arthur, I continued to ignore him as though Matthew was nothing more than an invisible stain on my couch or sock.

As that year went on, it reminded me of a time when I was nine years old. I was asleep soundly in my room with the fan quietly buffeting cool air in. The summer had been scorching hot and no one dared go outside. The only time Matthew and I dared leave our house was when our mother, having no choice but to take us, went to her friends. It was fine in the car. All we had to do was suffer for a few minutes in the heat in the time between car and house. And, really, the ladies' homes were not all that bothersome. Matthew and I entertained each other unless there were other children. Usually we were greeted by girls.

One girl I remember especially well was a blonde, shrill, energetic one named Emily. She tugged Matthew and I into her room and stole make-up from her mother's room to put on us. Her little sister giggled uncontrollably.

It was after one of these events, going home, watching a game with our father, and then settling in our bed that I was woken up in the middle of the night. I sat up straight and reached down, since I slept on the top bunk of our bunk beds, and poked Matthew awake. Matthew yawned and rubbed his eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"Shh… can you hear that? Can you smell that?" I took a loud sniff. Yes, there was something strange in the air. It reminded me of a campfire, but without that sweet tang. This smell was acidic, almost.

"A fire…?" Matthew slipped out of bed and padded to the window. Red light glowed, illuminating his face.

"Dad! Mom!" he cried and rushed out.

I hopped off the bed and rolled my ankle in the process. I didn't notice until later when my ankle hurt, but I was drowning in panic. I looked out the window and saw the house next to us, owned by a nice elderly woman, burn. Fire leaped up in tendrils and red fingers, tearing the house down. Black, heavy smoke rose from the fire and the structure began to crumble. I was entranced. I didn't even notice my father's arms wrap around my waist and pick me up, rushing us out of the house.

The night was warm, but Matthew and I shivered with fear and adrenaline. We huddled by our mother, watching the firefighters spray the house with water.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Miss Daphne…" my father's voice broke.

The next morning we learned that the aging woman had forgotten a cake in her oven and, combined with dryness and heat of the night, the house thereafter caught on fire. She was burned in the process.

The memories after that were numb. I recall going to her funeral and placing a handful of dirt on her casket, and then I recall my mother weeping. After that the memories blur until several years later.

That's what happened during that year with Arthur. I felt I was watching something slip away from me, burn, and I had no control. All I could do was to forget about my body and submit to the flow, become numb; become lifeless.

But all my efforts were in vain. Arthur graduated. I'm certain he thought of me as no more than a parasite that occasionally annoyed him. This obviously upset me, even so much that when I visited our grandparents three miles outside of town in their ranch, grandma who was hard of seeing could see my sorrow. She asked me what it was. I said I had been upset from school. She pinched my cheek and told me it would be fine.

I still continued not to pay attention to Matthew. He receded in my life. We got along fine before. I now envy siblings who would fight and hate each other as children but grew up to love and cherish the other's presence. With Matthew, we got along fine. Maybe it would have been better if we fought more often.

In fact, I didn't see Arthur for many years. It wasn't until we were both in our thirties and fairly well off. I was invited through a coworker to a dinner party hosted by Arthur's company. When I saw him, making fun of a woman who had a bad habit of picking her nose, I felt an intense pain in my chest. I was ashamed. I kept my head lowered for fear that my cheeks would turn red and I would at once be exposed.

After that our lives drifted away. The magnets avoid the other's course, sliding past one another and barely touching. That was our life.

And Matthew, oh how I took our love and lives for granted. He passed away without a word and, when I needed him most, for I was all by my lonesome like a wolf separated from his pack, all I could hug was a cold stone. I don't even know how he died but it was either through an accident or sickness. I set the flower on his grave and I cried for a long time.

We are all born for a purpose, I believe. When we come crying and batting our tiny fists we don't know what that purpose is. Some may not know that purpose until they are dusty and old, and others may never even learn it. I think my purpose was to make these quiet realizations, even if this life has been unimpressive. I'm no hero. I'm nothing but a tick, a mosquito, but even those small insects have a purpose. The lady bug that crawls in a kid's palm, its red back spotted with black spots like pupils, has its reason to be: to survive. The fish that swims in a pond, its waters sometimes warm and full of nourishment and sometimes cold and unforgiving has its purpose as well. And what was I? I was a base human being that abandoned his own brother in pursuit of a man who would never love me back.

And maybe that was my purpose all along.

I do not own Hetalia