belle sing. nine. fin.

Throw up the contents of my stomach on the pavement, the hand that used to hold my brothers so tightly now sears at the memory of his palm on mine.

I used to think that he was the one who had to look after me but I soon learnt it was the opposite. I fell over and cried and he wouldn't know what to do, just stood there flapping his arms around until Andy picked me up and placed me back on my feet again. Vati fell over and cried and Andy just kept on walking. I stood there a moment, torn between two brothers, and followed on after Andy until Vati caught up to us and I counted down the seconds until he cried again.

What kinda kid literally cries over spilled milk at the breakfast table, anyway? 

My mouth tastes like bile and acid, rotten to the core. Like the bodies they-

Another splatter on the sidewalk, I groan and look up at the starlit sky. Somewhere underneath me in the concrete and dirt there's traces of my blood and skin from when I fell over and cried and Andorra picked me up again. A baby face that I never quite grew out of spilling tears down my cheeks, I remember the feeling of stones in my skin and how the tore open my flesh so easily. He was never one for coddling, Andy - expected me to just get on my merry way. I'm glad he taught me that. I wish Vati learnt the same.

I keep walking, as my brother would expect me to, leaving my stomach outside a strangers house.

What kinda person digs up a dead body?

Andorra would. I'm not shocked about that - I don't think I am, anyway. Bandannas wrapped around their faces as if it made them anonymous. I'd recognise those shoulders, hunched over and trembling, mirror image hauling up dirt with a spade like it was his job.

Like it was his job-

Fuck. And I thought they were actually working for that money.

There's nothing left in my body so I retch, abdomen lurching with disgust. I hope the neighbours plant pots like imaginary vomit. 

Mother fuckers. Andorra makes sense and Vatican doesn't. Kid who cries at the breakfast table, I punch him once and his bones just about break, he wouldn't dig up a body in the middle of the night. He's too far up in the clouds to dig up the earth and those within it. And yet I saw him, watched him through the brown eyes we share, followed them both to the graveyard, looked at the crosses made of marble and wondered what they meant. Wondered why they were carrying shovels. Heart stopped when old metal pierced the earth and I felt the dead roll in their graves, thought that perhaps I belonged in the earth with them all, wondered if my own brothers would dig me up and fled when no solid answer came to mind.

Throw up the contents of my stomach the next morning and cry, spilled tears and an aching, all-knowing truth for breakfast.