When I Realised About My Brother

by Matthew Hull

The woman who came to sit opposite my brother and me on the late train was wearing idiotic clothes and bad makeup and had stupid thick wrists. I curled my lips under my teeth to stop from laughing and looked at my brother. He looked at me and then at her and then me again with a half-smile and those giggling eyes he used to sometimes make. The ugly woman opened her mouth and the tangle of hair on her forehead got caught in an updraft of breath and flapped there just like a windsock. I moved my hand to my mouth to stop the laugh bursting from me and turned to my brother and he was still looking at her. His mouth was a crack wide, just enough to slide in a playing card, and the wet tip of his wet tongue poked through and I knew then that even though her fat belly lolled from underneath her shirt and her face was braille-bumped with acne scars and she had a dirty bandage wrapped around her left foot that he would have done it.

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Matthew Hull is aspiring but blogless.