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The house is quiet when I get home.  Everything is still, save muted hues of passing traffic dancing silently on the walls.  Outside even the streetlight flickers for a second before fading to darkness, the only unlit bulb on a long street of glowing orange.  Alone, moving up the walkway, I can’t help but imagine passing through the invisible wall of a secret magic world that surrounds only my small house.  Inside, does time disappear as night pulls its dark covers over the edges of our humble corner?  Sometimes Ma leaves the living room light on.  She forgets because it’s broken and when she shuts the other lights it looks like everything’s off.  But when I close the door I can still see its pale blue glow trembling on the ceiling like the glimmer of a dying firefly.

I always check on my little brother right after I leave whatever I was carrying in my room.    I’ve been home, but haven’t seen him awake in almost a week.  He’s off to school before I wake and sound asleep by the time I get home, his tiny body tucked away in the enormous trundle bed my mother got him.  A small pang of guilt burns in my chest as I watch him quietly.

Ma told me yesterday that for the past three days the moment they get back he drops his backpack and runs to my room.  Empty.  “Aww.  Where’s Gugguh?” she said he pouts.  I can imagine him, hands drooping by his sides, staring at an empty chair, an empty bed.

Each night that I watch him sleeping, I try to imagine how he spent the day.  I lean against the railing of his bed and watch his mouth move slightly.  What is he dreaming about?  Building legos?  Maybe he’s eating pizza with Ba.  Am I in his dream?  Is he thinking of me?  Does he know I come in his room and pull the sheets he’s tossed away back over his frail shoulders?  Does he know I kneel beside his bed and sit with my chin on my forearms wishing I could wake him up and ask about what color he got at school?  Does he know I’m there every night when I can’t be there during the day, every night I’m there even when he doesn’t see?  It feels like magic.  Watching silently in the darkness I secretly hope he does.  Maybe he doesn’t.  But for now I’ll just brush the hair from his forehead and get ready for bed.  Tomorrow I’ll try to wake up early enough to share breakfast.

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Video credits - Thanks David.