Mafia Life

Have you ever had a moment in your life where you feel like you can’t breathe, like the Earth beneath your feet has drifted away and no matter how hard you try to seem conscious you just can’t? I’ve personally had felt like such many times in my life already, however, some situations are harder to go through than others. Recalling the one that was the hardest makes my body stiffen and turns my skin cold. I remember like it was yesterday, mainly because it keeps coming back in my mind no matter how hard I try to forget. Haunting me till I shriek and wither is agony and pain but this pain isn’t physical neither can you ever feel it. It’s like you… sense it. 

I still recall the dead faces of my parents as they lay still on the ground. My mind is transfixed on the moment when my brother is being taken away by some mafia people as he struggled to fight against them, while I try to keep my weeps at a minimum as I’m hiding in our old family shed that smells like old dog shit and thousands of years old spoiled milk. Mind you, the shed looks as bad as it smells yet it’s the last thing on my mind at that moment. All I can think is how one evening ruined everything I had, loved and cared for. 

I remember times when I’ll wake up in the middle of the night screaming and panting but no one would be there to care. That’s the pain that hurts the most, knowing no one cares for you at a time when you need someone to. I wish I could go back in time to appreciate the good days before it was all taken away, more precisely stolen from my bare hands and I didn’t do anything to prevent it from happening. Oh, how foolish of me to not care then. 

I still remember the times I would have dinner with my brother and my parents together. My father’s occasional dad jokes would lead me and my brother in a fit of laughter by how bad it was, while my mum would merely roll her eyes, yet a faint smile of amusement and happiness was always visible on her lips. Love and joy swarmed in her gaze as she looked over the table at our happy, smiling faces. I wish I could look into those beautiful eyes one more time without being met with a hazy or cloudy expression with no feeling into it. I wish I could hear one more of my dad’s jokes, yet this time laughter wouldn’t escape my throat but rather sobs and weeps. I wish I could look at my brother’s face one last time, the smile that always adorned his eyes and the way he always promised to protect from any harm of the world. 

Little did he know that he would fail in making that statement true. Little did he know, it wasn’t physical pain he needed to protect me from but the emotional one, the one where you can’t stop hurting no matter what and there’s no cure for this pain. He may have tried to protect me by trying to save me from death but in all honesty, I’d rather face death than this. I’d rather go through the pain of dying than… this. Then dream to still go through the content and joyful days which you know will never come back yet you still wish for them to become a reality.