A letter from an idiot

Hello little brother,

It's been a while since we've talked and although I can't visit you due to the immense pain this causes me, you've been stuck in my mind since you've left.

Had you not left, you would have been an even more pain in my ass. You would have been an army officer and a son of an officer which means you will be more likely loyal to those bastards in high command. We would argue and quarrel all the time and we would still love each other despite hating each others' guts.

But you would have helped a lot and took care of our baby brother the way you usually do. You would have been friends with my wife because she already has her own "Ahmed"; the kind that wreaks havoc whenever he enters a place and always pick a fight with his sister only to laugh with her a second later.

If we were luckier, we would have had you in my wedding, and in our sister's wedding and you would have had us in yours. We would have seen your kids by now and our mother would have been a grandmother as she wishes everyday.

I don't dream of you; Probably because my mind does not want to give me the satisfaction of seeing you. But when I finally do see you in my dreams, I see you alive and well. I dream that your death was just a mixup in papers in heaven. Heaven's management has finally fixed this mistake and brought you back from heaven to our miserable lives. I see you coming home and I hug you and touch your face and then I hug you some more.

I see mom made us food — a feast actually because we eat like hippos — and you've grown up to be a fine man and the good son you have always been.

You go visit our uncles and you help out our cousins. You save some of them from the path they have taken in life and you guide them through this fine thread between being street smart and being idiots. You help in a way that only you can.

And then I wake up and my mind play games with me. I can't tell which is real and which is not because I had a whole other life in my dream than the one I'm living. I wake up and I realize it was all just a dream and I wake up to the same nightmare.

I get stuck in my own denial. I count you alive in everything I do. Whenever I buy yoghurt I get you an extra one, and whenever I serve a meal, I mistakenly and subconsciously prepare a dish for you. I see you in my wake because I can't seem to see you that often in my sleep.

I've tried to do good and fill in your shoes; but I can't; Nobody can. I guess I have underestimated your value in our lived.

So when will I see you and get to hug you in real life?

Signed:

Your big idiot narcissistic brother.