It is 5 AM and I just had a nightmare. I'm going to type it haphazardly and not care about grammar or checking.
In my dream, papa took care of Deloy while JJ and I worked. He seemed to enjoy it, taking Deloy to places like Cuenca park and buying him snacks at Rustans.
I remember standing outside our house one day, I had contracted a really bad disease (TB, I think). It was fall. The leaves had turned beautiful shades of red, orange, and yellow and were slowly falling to the ground already littered with it.
Deloy and papa were out in the front of the house. Deloy was jumping on a stack of leaves while papa watched him. I remember sitting in a black van with friends who came over to check up on me, watching them fondly, and also, coughing violently. I was scared. It had been a week already and I wasn't getting any better.
As I sat and watched, half listening to my friends' conversations behind me, I glanced at the house beside us. Our neighbor, a boy about my age, was relaxing on his front porch half watching us. I remember looking at him, he was scrawny, had glasses, and a dorky haircut. He looked shy. I remember this event happening everyday, and everyday he was there watching us. He didn't come off as creepy though. In fact, he seemed like he wanted to join us or talk to me, but he was too shy.
One day, I walked over to Deloy, who once again was jumping in and out of a stack of leaves as papa watched from the sidewalk, arms on his hips. Papa was wearing that old, maroon long-sleeved fleece sweater and his usual gray pants and big slippers. I was wearing my black blouse and the light blue jeans, and strapped across my chest was my green purse. I ran over to Deloy and grabbed his hands. We jumped around in the leaves, kicking and laughing. I glanced over at our neighbor and smiled at him, trying to encourage him to talk to us. But he didn't budge. As I kept playing, however, my cough started up and it was another violent storm of coughs.
Fast forward to night time, I don't remember what happened. I think two cars came in front of our house. My friends and I were outside talking, our neighbor had finally joined us. I could hear my brother and his friends laughing and talking through the window as they watched TV inside the house. I'm not sure where Deloy and papa were, I think they were inside and upstairs, getting ready for bed.
Anyway, suddenly people from those two cars came out. A man with a purple shirt who looked not so much older than I was strode quickly towards our door. Though the group looked normal, in jeans and shirts and caps, there was something about him, about them, that terrified me. I stepped forward and asked him what he wanted. He immediately told me he wanted to see my brother. I hollered out for my brother, telling him there was a group of people who wanted to see him.
Not a second had my brother arrived at the top of the front steps, a friend in tow, that the man in the purple shirt pulled out a hand gun. "This won't do," he said, and fired his gun at my brother. Once in the shoulder, another in the other shoulder, one in the stomach, and one in the head. My brother fell back, lifeless.
I stood there, my heart had dropped to the floor, my hands were shaking violently, my vision was blurry. I was completely filled with utter fear and shock. It was the worst feeling I had ever felt in my life. My body suddenly felt heavy, and I felt no energy to support it. I feel to my knees. "No..." I muttered as the bottom of my lip started quivering and tears started flowing down my cheeks. "No, no, no, no, no." My head drooped down and I felt a flood of uncontrollable sadness and despair fill me. As I did this, everybody was silent and nobody moved.
I felt helpless. The purple man's posy had surrounded him and I felt their threatening presence walk silently towards me. A woman grabbed the scruff of my shirt and pulled me up. Everything else was a blur. She pushed me towards my friends, who were also terrified and held at gunpoint by one of the men. Another man had come in and was keeping an eye on my brother's friends. The purple man stood silently by the steps of our door, watching.
The women shook me, trying to get me to pay attention to her, but I felt nothing but sadness and fear. I was about to shut down. All I kept thinking was that my brother had been shot, cold and calculated, without hesitation. And I had called him to the front door.
She gave me a minute to gather back my senses before shaking me again. I finally turned towards her. I don't remember exactly what she said, but they demanded $3,000 from me. They threw a phone at me and told me to give it to them. I felt dumbstruck. I remember standing by the door of my car, beside my silent and crying friends, being held at gunpoint and shaking my hands angrily. Tears started uselessly flowing again, this time in anger and frustration. "What the fuck are you talking about!" I yelled at them. "I don't have $3000!" and that was the truth. I barely had anything in my bank account. My grandpa was retired and had no income. And my brother barely had any savings. We lived from paycheck to paycheck.
I felt helpless once more. Angry and sad and frustrated. Somehow, that's where more blurriness occurred. I remember my neighbor, that boy, stood beside me and watched me silently. He was scared but somehow his thoughts flooded my head. Suddenly, I knew what he was thinking. He knew someone who could help us. I needed to call that person. He was rich, and he was a superhero that could save us and take down the bad guys to avenge my brother's death. He was Batman.
I know that sounds ridiculous now, but in my head, it was perfect. I'm not sure what happened next, all I remember was that the bad guys had finally gone. I think someone had called Batman, they freaked out, and ran away. I remember running into the house. My brother's body was nowhere to be found. I ran to his friends who were cowered in a corner.
"Where is he?!" I cried. They shook their heads as if to say they didn't know. I felt the heaviness of sadness grip me again. I walked towards the living room, my body was shaking and my vision blurry again. Where was he? Once again, I felt the life drained out of me and I fell flat on my face onto the floor, crying hysterically. I remember crying so hard that it became very hard to breath. I lay there, barely breathing, almost dying -- when I woke up.
I woke up breathing heavily, feeling traces of complete despair and desolation.
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