Brother,
You are the reason I am what I am now—cursed, hated, feared. You are the reason I am what I always have been. The day we were born, we came out in one body. Then God came down and ripped us in two—but he did not break us equally. In you were all things bright and warm and beautiful; to me was left the anger, the shame, the cruelty. There was no part of me not shrouded in darkness. For so long I stood beside you, the dusk that followed your sun. For so long I relied on your light to see—no longer. I would rather be cursed and feared than loved for you. If I am to be a monster, then I will be a monster. There is no such thing as half a sin.
Cain
Brother,
It is not a sacrifice if the giving is not a loss—that is what they told me, that day we returned from the fields, hands sticky from lamb’s blood and pomegranate juice. As if I had anything to give. As if I hadn’t been losing since the day we were born. All that I had was the anger and shame and cruelty enough for two brothers; you were the one who carried our heart. All that I had was anger and shame and cruelty and your love. Only one of those would have been a loss.
Cain
Brother,
I think you were the only one who ever loved me. Father was too obedient to love a monster, and Mother—she was still wary from the last sin she committed, and my voice was a little too clever, my tongue a little too wise. Their suspicion sat like a rock where my heart might have been, but for you I carried it all because I had no other choice. Because you were my heart and my light and everything good about me. You loved me because my anger was your anger, and my guilt was your guilt, and because it was all you knew how to do. When you set the lamb on the altar, it was my hands that dragged the knife across its throat and my hands that were stained red.
Cain
Brother,
The day I took you out into the fields, I had hoped to catch a glimpse of the heart I lost to you so long ago. When I buried the knife in your chest, I pried your ribs open and finally saw it nestled in between your lungs, a fistful of red muscle shuddering and wrong. It was smaller than I expected. I sat back on my heels and let your blood dry on my skin. I walked back to the house, and I told them, I am not my brother’s keeper. I am not. Only the keeper of your anger and shame and cruelty, of your secrets. I never got the rest of you.
Cain
Brother,
If I were standing over you once more in the fields, this time I would plunge the knife into my own chest instead. I fear it still would not be a worthy sacrifice. I fear my blood would salt the earth.
Abel—it hurts to hear your name.
Cain