Swimming Blind
by infamouslastwords
He turns the knob of the front burner, hears the four clicks and then smells the rush of natural gas floating sharply under his nose. Blue-hot flames lick the bottom of the kettle, scraping the metallic edges dully across tines as he adjusts its seating.
He's soaked through. The dark jumper stretches thinly over his shoulders, hangs limply around his icy fingertips. Connor's hunched at the table in a similar state. Water runs over the shells of his ears and the ridges of his lips and it's nighttime in the fall.
Murphy rubs circles over his upper arms waiting for the kettle to boil. He feels like pulling off his clothes and swinging them to the floor in wet, heavy arcs, smacking sharply against the boards underfoot. Drafty house be damned against his bare skin. But they had snuck out. Noises would wake up Ma, give them away, make pointless ever being in the rain. He watches the ridge between his brother's shivering shoulders.
Maybe not pointless.
Coming home had been like swimming blind. Murphy couldn't tell which way was up, down, left, right. The moonless, starless sky moved like the grasses they ran through. The rain pervaded from every direction. Sometimes it fell backwards.
Their fingers had found, fled, fought. Their anatomies fizzled out at the edges like burning tissue paper, indistinguishable from the seething surroundings. The feeling was loneliness, being lost. Across countryside and mud roads they had stayed apart, lost, but eventually on their back lawn. On his back in that grass, Murphy felt for the first time self-sufficient and in the same instant safe. He'd never felt safe alone, before. Whatever direction he looked in was every direction, forever.
On weed and booze and cigs.
He takes the kettle from the burner before it can scream. Gets the tea bags, fills two very different mugs and joins his brother at the table. They drink in varying intervals, coming off and calming down and cold-sobered. So many minutes have passed in silence. Then Connor asks;
"Why didn't we get us some towels, do ya think?"
Murphy drinks from his mug lazily. "Dunno," he mumbles onto its ceramic lip. "But we should've."
"Fucking yeah, we should've," between chattering teeth.
But they don't move. There are puddles around Murphy's sock-covered feet from where gravity has started to dry the rest of him. The water is probably warping the wooden chairs, wooden table where their elbows and arms splay across its surface. Under a single bulb in the kitchen they sit and stay, hands trying to clam warmth off of empty mugs. The clock softly ticks.
Murphy's getting a little muzzy when he says, "Smokes?"
Connor moves himself with an effort that seems great and in an interest besides his own.
"No, no more tonight."
"This morning."
"Bed."
Connor stumbles on the stairs. He had been hitting heavier than Murph, talking louder than Murph, getting friendly than Murph. Recalling this Murphy grabs his brother's upper arm and, more tactlessly than necessary, continues up the stairs with him in tow. Ma's snoring loudly as they pass her half closed door. They turn the slim corner and the familiar smells knock into Murphy all the sudden—the shared space and linked memories. He lets Connor down on their bed (two twins, pushed together; he'd said, "I don't wanna wake up with yer wood on me back. First time it happens, we're cutting this out." But it wasn't like they were ever touching in the morning. Apart. Maybe the mattresses together were enough.) before letting him go. He walks to the linen closet and pulls out an armful of towels, blankets. When he gets back to the room Connor is on the floor, chin over the bin's rim.
"Oh, ya retard."
He swings off his jumper, hanging it on the wall where a picture of Da' used to be. He takes a towel from the bed and lays it flat under them before riding his brother of his soaked sweater.
"Murph…" The protest is a low moan.
"Shush, drunkard."
He reaches forward from behind and flicks open the fly of his brother's jeans. He piles on a towel, a blanket, waits until the nausea passes.
His head is to Connor's shoulder when it does.
"Murphy."
He jolts out of his stupor. "Yeah."
Connor's wiping sweat and vomit from his face as Murphy rouses himself to action. He doesn't catch the slightest hitch in his sick brother's voice, its muted smallness. Not at first.
They're horizontal in their respective places, both in dry socks and boxers, before Murphy picks up on it.
"I'm afraid."
He has his back to the voice.
"You're paranoid."
"Murphy," warning.
But he's already grasping shaking fingers. He feels washed out, and Connor's a steel wool pad of coiled nervous energy.
"What's it like, Connor?"
They speak to the ceiling, palm to palm and wrists crooked. The thin vulnerable insides lay against one another.
"Like blowing yer nose too hard. Like being afraid yer brother's not going to be there one morning. Like having a carpet wretched out from under yer feet."
"What?" Murphy's letting go as he tries to figure out. "What?"
"Everything, everything. Coming home."
In the dark room, he's suddenly in the field again. Their fingers fight, feign, find. Connor's chasing after him in the darkness.
"I'm tired of being tired of being together. It was like swimming blind. I was so afraid, lost from you. Without you."
Then Connor punches him hard on the shoulder.
"Ow!"
"You shithead! Why did you shake off my hand outside?"
And they're four years old again, afraid of their own shadows and thunder and lightning and all the other things out there in the big scary world a four year old lives in. And they're trying to prove they're big kids again, laughing at the dark and standing out on the porch during storms. Only now being big kids means being alone, being independent, standing five feet away from each other at parties and purposefully having different friends, favorites, fixations.
"You fucker, I was afraid."
It's now Murphy learns how much he's alienated his brother. After their whole lives, womb to a little while ago, of being together and then like a car tumbling in a wreck—nothing. Complete and utter disconnect. Without an acknowledged reason, even.
"I'm sorry."
And he doesn't know what to say besides. But he knows he's never meant anything before more.
Connor punches him again.
"Shut it."
"I'm sorry."
"Shut it, retard!"
"I'm sorry, Connor."
"Let me go. I didn't ask it of ya, I didn't fuckin' ask it of ya," snarling and spitting and trying to get away get away get away.
Connor holds himself stiffly and breaths on his sagging mattress. Murphy listens to his brother's panting mouth against the down of a pillow. He might be crying. Murphy realizes his own vision is hazy.
"We're fucking grown up, aren't we? Cryin' like little girls. Fuck me."
"Yeah, fuck you. I'm not cryin'."
But even as this is said, Murphy finds his fingers entangled with his brother's. He stares at the ceiling, suddenly so tired.
"Murph."
He's floating off to somewhere lucidly.
"Aye."
Connor sinks into the mattress with finality. The answer is all they ever wanted.
Hands palm-to-palm and wrists crooked, they swim blindly into sleep.