His-story: rival siblings

Oh you know, just some bread, butter, jam, a knife and some skin and flesh…

This bully never learns

I don’t look at jam jars the same way ever again, and neither does my immediate older sibling (brother number 3) whom was a bully. In His-story:2 you learned about the fisticuffs. Today’s post follows in the same vein….hmm vein, interesting choice of word, and I promise it was not deliberately edited in. There was a chronic problem of bullying, especially by this brother no.3. Being the last pair of siblings, my kid brother and I were adored by all who came to know us. Whatever endearment you know, we embodied. Whatever cooing sound you can conceive, we received. Whatever compliment you have ever showered, we were drenched in. This was made even more evident to brother no.3 by how our older siblings doted on us. Hugs, kisses, stories, play time, toys and presents a plenty. One time we had guests in our house and were serving them delicious savoury shondesh (gram-flour crisps) as one of the fried nashta (starter) items. Every culture knows that the food for guests are not to be touched by anyone other than the guests. I think brother no.3 will recall clearly the worst kindred bias that was shown by the sister of the middle pair of sibs. You know the one who was involved in the famous knife fight. She especially doted on me and my kid brother, and we had all sorts of lovey-dovey nicknames, for example I was Honey-bunny and my younger brother was Mummy [said in sickly sweet honeyed baby voice too]. Anyway, she was frying them and having plated them to cool, instructed everyone not to touch them whilst she popped out the kitchen for something. My greed overcame me and I nicked one. And devoured it. Brother no.3 was witness to this and his considerable greed overcame him and he nicked one and demolished it. We heard her hurried footsteps in the corridor and before we knew what was what, she stopped dead. “WHOOOOOOO?”, was all she said and turned on us, spatula in hand and poised just inches from my face. “Did you eat the shondesh?”, she demanded in an annoyed voice, brow creased. “No”, I (rep)lied instantly, looking up at her with my big brown goo-goo eyes (I was like 6 or 7 at the time, c’mon). “Tell me the truth, because lying is a bad thing”, she said, softer now, but still it was like she was booming at me. I then nodded, and my lip started trembling.

“Aww, honey-bunny that’s OK, don’t get upset, I’m not mad that you had it”, she soothed and cooed. “What about you, did you have one?”, she turned on my brother next. It was hard for him to deny the evidence attesting to the crime, but also, being a little shit as kids are, I ratted him out. The version of what she said to him, he recalls it as something like this: “WHY DID YOU EAT IT I TOLD YOU NOT TO, HOW GREEDY ARE YOU? DON’T EVER DO THAT AGAIN OR I’LL BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF YOU, YOU HEAR ME?”. I’d put the shrug emoji here, but I ain’t got a clue how to, so we just take his word for it. One could say brother no.3 doesn’t sound like a bully from the story so far, but wait. The shondesh story was just to highlight how resentment might have been building in brother no.3 to then make him bully us. Because a lot of mine and my younger brother’s childhood memories concerning him, involved running away from, screaming because of, crying because of, acting out because of, reacting to, and enacting revenge on, him! It was the same pattern repeated: youngest pair of boys playing harmoniously together, along comes brother no.3 and starts stomping around. Or starts hitting us. Or snatches a toy and runs away. Or just randomly comes in front of one of our faces, bends over and lets rip a fart, then runs off. Other times it would be shoving an armpit in my face (a little older this time and he’s in full blown puberty – puke!), or breathing. Now, we were all guilty of it. But he was obsessed with breath. He couldn’t stand feeling or witnessing other people breathing around him. The silly thing we used to do, is sneak up on an unsuspected sibling and then suddenly exhale deeply and forcibly on said victims face; bonus if you managed to catch them unawares and the mouth was hanging open, bulls-eye if it made them gag reflexibly.

I promise there is a point I’m getting to. We all had our fights and tantrums, don’t get me wrong. But for some reason brother no.3 stood apart. He probably had ADHD, he definitely had OCD behaviour. And he used to be angry a lot of the time compared to my sweet natured soul. For that, everyone teased him by calling him adopted. Yep, every time he acted out, “It’s because you’re adopted”, we would tease him with. And when the teasing got tough, pushed to the limit, even he would retort back “I hate you all, I wanna go back to my real family not this adopted one!” I remember one afternoon where he wouldn’t leave me and my kid brother alone. And this time we lost it. So we ran to the middle brother (the sword fighter, lol), tears streaming, voices rising, we told him we had had enough. Now, being the older brother, I am sure he was exercising his sibling prowess because he told us to climb onto his back, our feet mounted on his hands as if on a horses saddle. He then stood and made robot rocket ship sounds and off we flew around the house to find the bully. And when we did, we shot missiles (punches), harpoons (slaps), rockets (kicks) at him until he was cowering in a corner. But it didn’t end there. Our older brother gave us a choice: cash in all the times we were teased for the ultimate revenge, or, show mercy in exchange for an apology. Bother no.3 was glaring at us from the floor, hands behind his back, with a foot on his head. “Watch, WATCH what happens if you do anyth-“, but I cut him off when I exhaled very forcibly into his mouth. That action alone was killing him because he was whimpering in rage. “WE WANT TO GET HIM BACK FOR EVERYTRHING HE DID TO US”, we both chanted with glee. “Fine”, said our older brother, “but you can only have one action of revenge, that’s it. Whatever it is, I will allow it”, he then offered us, mischievously grinning and relishing the power. I assumed the position. I knew it was coming, I think my body somehow anticipated this moment. Because there was a stockpile situation going on. “He has to open his mouth”, I asked my older brother. Naturally, brother no.3 resisted, but with a few encouraging jabs to his ribs, he eventually complied. “On your back”, I ordered him. Then in 3…2…1….”BRRRRRRRRRRRR…pff…pffffff…POP”, I let rip, that entire day’s worth of wind directly into his open trap. Revenge is not sweet, it’s smelly.

The guy wouldn’t stop though. One time, he annoyed me so bad, that I chased him down our long corridor with a pair of scissors in my hand. Now our long corridor ends with a door to the largest bedroom of the house, which is mostly always left open so anyone fast enough could run into the room and slam the door shut and then immobilise the handle in place so the door remained closed. That’s usually how we escape from the chaser. This time, the door was closed. And I was giving good chase. He swerved past a laundry basket and flicked it backwards at me, but I managed to swerve it too. Then he flicked back some clothes from the drying ropes dad put up in one of the bay windows, but I flicked them away and kept up the chase. I know blind panic crept into him, because he lunged at the door and in one fell swoop tried to turn the handle open the door and twist round to shut it in my face. No chance mate. He lunged, smacked into the door, twisted the handle but it got stuck (thank you Victorian House and its old Victorian features)…he didn’t even brace himself for what happened next. I then lunged at him, scissors in hand pointing at his back and I sliced. It didn’t penetrate, c’mon, the bulla had ample flesh, but being flesh…he lost a chunk of it.

OK back to the jam jar that sparked this post in the first place.

I was toasting bread in the kitchen, minding my own business, somewhere in a fantasy in my head no doubt. I don’t believe Nutella was a thing back then, or if indeed it was, we sure as hell were not rich enough to have any at home. We had flora butter or Vitalite butter or that hard rock hard block of Anchor butter, UNSALTED. And strawberry jam. Hot toast buttered and then very lightly layered with strawberry jam. Absolutely scrumptilicious. Lip-smackingly happily anticipating that crunchy first bite into the crusty bread…salivating and unapologetically impatient for the damned toaster dial to hurry the hell up and cook my bread! Out of nowhere this guy starts annoying me. The details escape me because all I have is buttered jammy bread on my brain. I was in (toast) heat. Again, just annoying me. Why couldn’t he “leave me aloooooooone, you fat bulla”, I shouted back at him. That hit a nerve. He hated being called fat, and bulla on top of it was worse. Bulla doesn’t even mean anything. It just sounds offensive. Especially if said with lips involuted inside the mouth and then with a full mouth of air ‘bulla’ exhaled out forcibly. He charged towards me, and I reacted. I picked up the jam jar…and slammed it at him. The trajectory was downward arc from my hand…to his foot. It smashed on his foot…the glass jar crumbled, the jam spreading and oozing like blood. But why wasn’t the knife rolling off or sliding off or ricocheting off? It just…stood up. OMG it was embedded in his foot. I’m brave and bold, believe. But even I was horrified. What had I done? I couldn’t hear my own thoughts through his scream.

The memory stops there. Maybe I was battered by dad so bad that my subconscious has protected me from the memory. Probably unlikely. I mean, I don’t think I was punished to be fair. He was a bully, I was an angel, with big goo-goo eyes, so.

The Pragaymatic Muslim

• High School Chronicles (8)
• His-story (14)
• Pluralism (1)
• Prelude (2)
• Revelation (2)
• Turning point (1)

1. 

   Ahahha. Thank you dear reader. Please do forward this on to those whom you think may benefit. High school is…

2. 

   Oh can’t wait for the next part. Very captivating.

3. 

   Merci beaucoup. If it pleases you then I will strive to compose more. Please spread the word and invite others…

4. 

   I like reading these!

5. 

   […] about how to suppress and repress the dark thoughts and suicidal ideations that plagued me at the turning point…