The Wolf My Brother

Through awkward glass doors, a boy of seventeen languidly enters the building with familiarity. He ascends five floors and animates his face to wear something more suitable before entering the room.

“Ah James you made it, take a seat. Can I get you a drink or anything before we start our session?”

“A coffee would be nice... thank you Mary,” he speaks with sincerity.

While Mary’s machine crafts his coffee, James’ eyes glide around the spacious room, being uncharacteristically observant. He always feels lighter here, ethereal. His conscious attention turned outward into the world rather than into himself; what a relief to step outside. The wall opposite James is made entirely of glass. Natural light floods the space, kissing his diaphanous skin. It was overcast when walking here, it was as though they were now above the clouds, escaping the gloom. She hands him the brew. He closes his eyes and sips the warm eucharist.

Sitting down, Mary accuses, “You’ve been eating?”

“Not really…”

“James we talked about how much that affects your mood. Stress and depression suppress your appetite but if you’re not eating it creates a negative feedback loop... it can lead to delirium. When you’re tired, ideas we’ve already diffused, resurface. You can’t think clearly if your energy is that low.” She sighs, despondent. “Have you been getting out of the house much?”

“Yes I’ve bee--”

Mary interrupts with dismissal, “Been hanging out at your favourite spot, beneath the willow, yes I figured as much. Do you ever take anyone else? I’m worried you’re alienating yourself James.”

“No... ” James looks into her deific eyes before changing the subject, “Do other clients ever tell you things that make you... uncomfortable?”

“I think people often forget the moral challenge that therapists face. I would certainly imagine that from time to time, a client will disclose something to their therapist that is hard for them to swallow. However, I believe it is important that the client feels fully accepted, and this must include the very worst in them.”

“How could you accept the worst in someone?” James persists with furrowed brows. It was clear to Mary that his question was made in reference to something he’d been struggling with.

Her face softens, warmed by compassion. Evidently sympathetic to his situation she continues, “Well just saying you do doesn’t count, and they certainly wouldn’t feel accepted. You can only accept someone truly, in their human entirety, once you have seen and accepted your own darkside. Or, let your own prejudices persistently beguile you. Blindness to your heart’s dark places stands between you and feeling with another. Condemnation is not feeling; whether you keep it to yourself or voice it aloud makes not the slightest difference. If mental sickness and corruption repelled me, I wouldn’t be able to do my job. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“... Condemnation doesn’t save, it oppresses,” James speaks softly as though repeating an already formed thought.

“That’s right James, you always catch on quick.” She pauses, waiting until she’s sure whether to ask her next question, “Do you still believe she didn’t do it?”

“I know she didn’t,” James mutters firmly.

She smiled gently. “You know, it’s okay to feel relieved... There are no ‘wrong’ feelings because we don’t get to decide how we feel. We just feel them. Whoever murdered your father is of course wrong to do so ... but I just want you to know you shouldn’t feel any guilt or even surprise, if you feel... thankful.”

“I --”

Mary interrupts, “Him dying changes nothing. He was vicious and cruel to those you love… and to you. His death hasn’t changed what he’s done to your mother... or how he treated your older sister like a slave… The fact is: now he’s gone, he can’t win custody. The divorce proceedings are finally over so no more rapacious lawyers, court fees or debt collectors harassing your mother outside your home. Obviously what happened is a terrible thing... but I’m just saying there are silver linings here and you’re allowed to feel good about them. You’re free now James.”

“Then why does it feel like the nightmare has only darkened?” his voice quavered by despair. “The divorce has mutated into a murder trial. Mum has gone from her hair falling out in the shower to ripping it out herself. Every time I see her she is shaking. The debt collectors are still outside but now the police bully her too! They treat her like a murderer even though they know there’s no evidence! They still haven’t even found Dad’s missing strong-box ‘stuffed full of cash’ you know... Sure, we won’t be in Dad’s custody but they want to take us away from Mum now anyway. They’re saying she’s an ‘unfit mother’ just because she brought home some strange guy… But we needed the money, she did it for us! ... My little brother wouldn’t stop crying... he was so hungry. She would never have had to if it wasn’t for Dad, it’s all his fault not mine. I don’t understand how this could have happened…”

“James … no one is saying it’s your fault. You mustn’t think that. PLEASE don’t think that. No matter what has or will happen, none of it will be because of --”

James cuts in, “I just need to prove we’re innocent and then we can all stay together. I know I can make it right that way… I know it.”

Mary digests James’ rant. She’d been concerned about this obsession for weeks now. It spiraling out of control is directly correlated to his increasing emotional stress. He’ll alienate himself further; forgetting basic self-maintenance like showering and eating. She has seen this in James before but it was different this time. He was obsessive, but also brilliant and usually achieved what he set his mind to … this time he may not like what he finds; he’s not ready for that, she reflects. “James I want you to listen to me carefully. ... During times like these, it is important to show courage. Our world rewards courage. It will not grind you under but raise you high. This is the secret of Lazarus, and Persephone’s return. Enantiodromia. Magic. Redemption through change is done only by charging into the night and discovering the stars. But, in the depths of the gloom, lies a feathered bed. … Fire does not define steel, but it can be forged no other way.”

Exiting the building, it takes James five minutes to walk up a path no more than ten yards long. With ice cultivating in patches as though they were sub-zero fungal cultures, the slight angle of elevation quickly became a cunning enemy, one fittingly cold-blooded. Forced to lower his hands out of his frayed, bespattered sleeves, the air bites his red fingers as they extend to grip the naked, flaccid tree appendages he is exploiting to steady himself whilst taking narrow-gated steps.

Down the pavement he carefully avoids all cracks in the paving stones. He would never have defined himself as superstitious but what else was there to rely on? Things were so bad he wasn’t taking any unnecessary chances, at least this was something he could control. What was left of snow drifts remained in sheltered corners, turned mottled and speckled black. From the exhaust fumes of cars stuck in traffic, he assumed, waiting with the engine turning in frustrated defiance. The same routine, same route, there and back ... every day… Perhaps: ‘stuck in traffic’ is rather a moot point. He ponders before rolling his eyes, why won’t my mind shut up recently? The incessant chatter clutters my skull endlessly, I can’t remember what silence is like, what peace feels like… “Great” he sarcastically exclaims aloud, “now I’m thinking about my own thinking … and now I’m talking out loud again!” He sighs and shoulders sink, defeated. Just remember what she told you, “You’re under a lot of stress, it’s okay to have strange or disordered thoughts.”

Abruptly, an almost paradoxically narrow, dilapidated, terraced rental home appears before him. Have I walked that far already? He looks behind him perturbed and suspicious as if to unveil the mirage. I don’t remember that walk at all … what was the last thing I was thinking about? he asks himself. His stomach replies with a hopeless growl. Fighting his own inertia, he enters his ‘temporary’ home.

His Sister and brother rise from the couch immediately and bring their panic to him. Maybe he’d know what to do, what to say... “They’ve taken her,” the words fall out of Athina’s mouth.

“What? Who’s taken her? James replies, mind suddenly in gear.

Sam speaks up, too young to fully grasp the ramifications, “The police. They came and took her while she was having her ‘mum-nap’.” James couldn’t be surprised at this point, only broken. They both look at James wide eyed, waiting for instruction. He always knows what to do, they think. He floats past them and up the stairs to his room. Now out of sight, he’s brought to his knees. He cries tears that lack salt due to malnutrition. He knows what he has to do.

After some time, he reunites with his siblings downstairs. They turn round expectedly. He hands them a black book. Looking at them with wet eyelashes, he makes them pinky-promise not to open it, and to give it to Mum when she’s home. He leaves with the sun shining on him.

Later that night their mother arrives home, exhausted, relieved but confused. Two out of her three children lay cuddled asleep on the couch. On the table is a black, leatherbound book she’d never seen before. Upon opening, she reads the following:

I am so sorry Mum. I killed him. I wanted to rescue you from a dragon. Be our family's hero. I thought someone had to. But, it’s in fighting dragons that you become one yourself. I hated him so much and I was so angry. What a fool I was. When I struck him down, I murdered my innocence and my soul too. When I discovered the money, I found my own shadow. There is a door that, once opened, cannot be closed. There is a darkness that stares back at you. A shadow who holds your gaze. You can’t separate yourself from your own humanity. I am not the same person I was before. I can never be.

What’s strange is it is only now, in writing truth, that I forgive him; my anger evaporating with my illusions. Only once I had seen and accepted myself as I am, could I accept him as he is. You always taught me to love my enemies. “That which I do unto my fiercest foe, I do unto myself.” Well, I have discovered now that the lowest amongst the low, the devil himself, these lurk within me. I am who now stands in need of the arms of this kindness. I’ve been condemning myself. Hiding from the world, from you. Denying ever having met my yetzer hara. But I’ve accepted my shadow now, I can deny it no longer for once again my mum needs me. It is in walking to the police willingly that I have reconciled myself with my own nature and called the wolf my brother. My mind is silent, my heart peaceful, my civil war is over. Don’t be sad Mum, you are my redemption.

When things have died down, walk to my favourite spot and dig beneath the willow. It was for you after all.

Months later, hidden by the willow’s cascading canopy, James’ mother unearths the strong-box. Inside, her salvation.

In a slumber, perfect and still, his mother lay atop a feathered bed. No longer shaking, not pacing, not sobbing. Her smile was no longer forced nor brave, it was the purest it had been since she was a child. Bound by dream rather than meat, she was free in a darkness of a deeper kind to this.