GET CREATIVE

by Demi Aransiola

There are two types of people in this world. It was something my dad taught me when I was a child. There are those born into success, the world loves them from the moment they’re born and everything is handed to them on a silver platter. And there are those who aren’t. They have to work, build themselves up from nothing in order to become someone who can look that first group in the eye and tell them they made it. “We’re the second group neshama sheli.” He would tell me, smiling as if it was a good thing. As if it didn’t mean we were dealt a bad hand in life. Maybe he was just happy I was there, I was the only one of my brothers who would listen to his teachings. I was the only one who believed them. “It doesn’t mean we’re weak though, it makes us stronger because we know the value of hard work. Of honesty, Joseph.” It was always the same spiel, and yet I obsessively hung onto every word.

Maybe that’s why when he died, I got everything. It was no secret I was the favourite but this was unprecedented. He left me the house, the farm and over half of his life savings. I was bewildered, and my brothers were furious. I should’ve renounced it, at least partly, but I saw it as my right. For years I had dreamed of getting enough money to start my own publishing business and I finally had enough. For years I was the only one who listened to his stories, the only one who cared. I deserved it. I earned it.

“Joseph.” my older brother, Ruben, said calmly “You know this isn’t fair. He was our father too, we deserve more than we got.” His voice was strained, showing the restrained anger below the blanket of composure. I could’ve ended it all then and there. I could’ve agreed, apologised and at the very least kept the life I had then. But a voice in the back of my head, telling me I earned this- that it was meant to be- had me turning around and walking out of the building, plans of what I could now do filling my head. I could finally look that group in the eye like my father had told me so many years ago. I was finally powerful like them.

That’s how I ended up driving up to what was once my house, now little more than a charred building, engulfed in flames. Auburn whispers drifted high into the night sky and with them my life. Framed. Imprisoned. Alone. My desire to succeed had been my downfall.