(no subject)
Sunday’s Gone
“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” -Maya Angelou
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It was a barely lit night in the middle of summer. The humidity was suffocating, even after the sun had long said goodnight over the horizon. The clouds were thick and they veiled the moon, leaving patches of dim light leaking through the tree branches onto my front lawn. My head had been spinning all night, unable to process the overwhelming emotions that I couldn’t seem to keep at bay for longer than two seconds. How could this be happening? What the hell triggered this and how can I make it stop? I pressed my hands hard on either side of my head, thinking that maybe if I held my head tight enough, I could fight back the paralyzing screams inside. They were little devils trying to bore their way out and I couldn’t let myself succumb. My hands shook uncontrollably as I tried lighting a cigarette, hoping in some way it would soothe the war in my mind. I was nervous, I was angry, I was confused, but most of all, I was absolutely terrified. This was something that I had never experienced before and I had no idea what to do. My brother was going clinically insane.
The tears started streaming now that I realized how completely helpless I was and I made no effort to hold them in. I looked back at my front door and attempted to tune out the commotion spilling out from behind it, but the fear for my family was much greater than the fear for myself. I have to go back.
I felt inhuman walking back up the sidewalk. By now, I had managed to put my emotions at ease and calm my nerves, something that had seemed impossible not even five minutes ago. Some sort of defense mechanism had been triggered and I felt almost numb. I could barely feel my legs moving one in front of the other and I witnessed the events that unfolded next with surprising detachment. I opened the door and was bombarded with noise. My 21-year-old brother was pacing the living room frantically with his hands over his ears. He was jumping at anything that moved close to him and yelling incoherently. My mother was nearby with an expression comparable to intense horror, but only understood by a parent who has come unbearably close to losing a child. My father was against the wall, his face stricken with bewilderment, not knowing what to do or if he should do anything at all. My eyes darted back to my older brother and that’s when I realized what he was saying.
“There is a MAN that is going to KILL you if you go in there!”
The frustration in his voice hit me like a brick to the face. He completely believed in what he was saying, regardless of how many times my parents tried explaining to him that no, they had already looked in his bedroom and there was no serial killer under his covers. The fear he conveyed was reminiscent of a small child who’s convinced that there are monsters in his closet and he cannot go to sleep until someone scares them away.
I stood there wide-eyed, a deer in headlights, as I watched him knock the TV down onto the tile floor, causing a loud crash and glass to explode in every direction. He was unleashing this great fury that had never been a part of him before. I tried convincing myself that it wasn’t coming from him at all, that this wasn’t my brother standing there with his sanity hanging on by a thread. This is just a bad dream, I thought to myself. When I wake up in the morning, I’ll be able to laugh about it with my brother over breakfast. “Oh my god, Brian,” I’ll say. “You won’t believe this crazy dream I had last night.” We’ll chuckle and joke about it and get on with our lives. But this wasn’t a dream that I was going to wake up from and my family’s lives are not going to go back to normal anytime soon.
The look Brian had on his face at that moment is an image that literally shocked me to the core. It was a frightening mixture of indescribable pain, frustration, and anguish, as if his brain was torturing him and taking him to a horrible mind state where unbearable anxiety couples with an intense fear that makes you want nothing more than to crawl out of your own skin and into a place void of human emotion. His eyes were so expressive that I could look into them and feel what he felt, see what he saw… and at that moment, I knew that this night was far from over. It had only just begun.
The events that unfolded over the next hour are still a blur. Remembering them is like watching an old black and white movie, with undefined edges and no sound. Brian was still unable to sit still and he expressed it in frequent grunts of frustration. He continued to pace back and forth like a caged animal. My mother slowly approached him and tried to give him a hug. She was only trying to reassure him, as any good mother would do, but he was like a rabid dog backed into a corner. He lashed out at her, punching her in the arm and pushing her backwards. She crumbled into a heap on the floor. Instinctively, my father advanced to protect her, yelling something like, “Don’t you dare touch your mother like that!” Brian reached for a fork on the counter and plunged it into his arm. My dad recoiled and cried out in pain.
Brian ran towards the back door, swung it open, and slammed it shut behind him. At the same time, I heard my 11-year-old brother’s door slam and lock. Thinking back, I realize how terrified he must have been, watching the person he looked up to behave like that. I wish I would have run into his room after him and make him feel a little bit safer, if at all. I helped my mom up from the floor and sat her down on the couch. I saw that her eyes were as red and swollen from tears as her arm was from the punch. My dad was bleeding profusely from his forearm as he made his way to the sink.
Brian would never want to hurt anyone, especially his family. Now, I was confident in my idea that this wasn’t really him, that it was someone else that just looked like him throwing my mother to the ground and stabbing my father. But reality was eating away at me. Seeing how violent he had become, I knew that we couldn’t deal with this on our own.
My stomach churned as I reached for the phone and dialed 911.