Brian

One that I wrote in 2009 - definitely in Australia at the time. Based on true events. Warning: Tear jerker. Mildly disturbing content. 

The skin just above his eyebrow split the instant he was struck. The feeling of blood warming a trail down the side of his face could be ignored. His head was pounding, just as they were pounding on him – kicking and punching, as though they were consumed by joy of hurting him, unable to let go of this ecstasy that was rage.


His mind a blur, he hears someone, the voice of a girl, shouting, “Do it! Give it to him! Get him!”

He felt pain as a clothed foot stepped onto his outstretched hand, the sound of crushing bone and tearing skin sending him into a maelstrom of confusion. Where was he? Why was this happening to him? Who are these people? Why do they want to hurt him?

He braves a glance at the owner of the clothed foot and sees that it is a boy from his school. A boy who was not like him, a boy who did not understand him - a boy who hated him. He felt no self-pity, he only felt the pain. Now noticing a group of on-lookers watching on, he did not ask God why no one was helping. He was only trying to concentrate on the song he started to play in his head. He did not understand what it meant, but he loved laughing, and who better to have a laugh with than with God?

A small hand grabs him by the collar, pulling him up only to land a blow that sent him back down. Again and again and again, his face now completely bloodied, his mind lost. Someone else finds a stick and laughs while he cracks it on his ribs. He no longer feels pain, he starts to sing out loud, somehow flaming the fire consuming these boys.

The crowd of spectators now afraid, the sudden cessation of cheering brought about by the protrusion of his shin bone, his mangled leg the result of repeated stomping and smashing with metal pipes. His bloodied face meant nothing to them, yet, his singing while they ripped his legs to shreds made an impact.

The girl who was once cheering them on was now crying, begging them to stop, but it was too late. They were completely frenzied by the charm of someone else’s agony. The jubilance in their war-like cries, the enthusiasm with each punch, each kick, each blow with a pipe. The utter joy of snuffing out the life of someone different. The more he sang, the more they hit him. The less he tried to fight, the more they hit him. No one could stop this chaos; no one could put an end to this celebration of violence.

Suddenly, for the shortest of time, all was quiet. He braved open a swollen eye, and saw the end of his life as the metal pipe crashed onto his neck. He choked, gurgled, and tried to scream. All that people heard were his strangled scream of terror and realisation that he was dying. As the wind rushed out of his lungs, as he struggled to stay alive for just another second, he looked at the boy who hated him, and still could not fathom the meaning of everything. He liked the boy, he wanted to be just like him, yet the boy wanted to know nothing of him, wanted to feel nothing but hatred for him.

He breathed his last breath and thought to himself, “Mum must be upset that I’m late getting home.” He knew not the sheer pain his mother felt, as she retrieved his body from the morgue the next day. He knew not that she felt that she had failed to protect him. The one thing he knew, however, was that she loved him, and still does.

As his story was plastered all over the news and the media thrilled itself at the news of another’s demise at the hands of mere children, his mother lowered his mangled body into a tiny grave. The death of Brian, the small, mentally challenged teenager who did not know anything other than love, has been long forgotten. The world now concentrates on the infamous boys who beat him to death. The world feels empassioned; the world wants to help these children. The world wants to forgive, to help them become better human beings. The world has no regrets. Someone needed to die in order for a lesson to be learnt - he wrong lesson. The community now reaches out to them. Welcoming them with open arms, blaming their unfortunate living circumstances and lack of guidance. The boys moved on to become criminals, uneducated, uncouth, but free. Their anti-social behaviour earned them sympathy and made them celebrated heroes.

Brian will never know the joy of going to college, the excitement of falling in love. He used to idolise his father, who came home at exactly the same time every evening, wearing the exact same clothes matched with a colourful tie. He wanted to be just like him, he wanted to work in an office, and he wanted to come home to a wife and children. He wanted all that he had and more. His mother has since become silenced, guilt-ridden by his death. His father, now an empty shell of a man, wakes up every morning and puts on a bland, boring tie. He and his wife are the only people in the world who remember Brian. Tears are shed for Brian every day; no one watches a once beautiful family crumbling.

The guilt-ridden mother is unable to console the now emasculated father. They are unable to move on together, the world fails to notice their plight. They are now powerless, the light that was once lit has been snuffed out, the fight they had in them to survive the quandary of raising a boy who could never understand the world, the strength now gone. The marriage breaks down, the once united front collapses, the hollow father and the pained mother part ways. Each trying to survive, unable to save anyone let alone themselves. They had failed to save their own child; life together was not a life worth living. They have no one to blame, no one to point the finger at, and no one to help them overcome.

An insensitive scientist may say it was evolution taking place. The mere brutality of natural selection, the survival of the fittest. It is, was and always be, the regression of the human race. The inability to run from primitive behaviour.

As God watches from above, he sighs and says with relief, “Hallelujah. Another saved from the monsters I have created.”

Fancy reading something else, or a few chapter of The Builder? Find it in the Archives section! New chapters of The Builder out soon.