Pangea IV
He lay on the ground, laughing through the spasms of pain. Some divine madness had lent itself to the order and shape of these events, and he enjoyed the laughter of a mad man.
He had been led to this place on the assumption he would meet someone with information about his family, his heritage and his inheritence.
The man next to him also laughed, but perhaps for his own reasons.
His watch had read 1:00 AM when he had come up to the man.
"Hello, I am your brother."
The primary evidence he offered was the same photo from his youth: his grandmother kissing her boss in front of a church, the same church they were now in front of. He looked up at the giant cross at the steeple, overlooking the entrance, the entrance overlooking the graveyard.
Here's where it got a bit dodgy: excavating the past is something like playing a slot machine that just gave a big payoff to someone else, statistically anyone can win, but the heart knows otherwise. Some strange man appeared claiming to be a lost brother and produced a copy of THAT photo, the one where his grandmother had been kissing her boss. Scandelous perhaps, but certainly not enough to claim blood relations.
"You just want some of my family's money... this is just about the cash."
The other man held out some paper work, claims of authenticity. He knocked them away.
It was all a slot machine with no payout, empty hands pulling back the lever and the slots roll and roll, never stopping, never paying out...
He caught a glimpse of the time as his right hand knocked away the paperwork -- sending it to the ground -- 1: 12 AM.
Then the words became heated, a conversation where everyone keeps the ante going higher and higher, until someone goes bust as they always do when the stakes get so high.
"I can always go to court. If you won't admit the truth, I'm sure your genes will!"
"You wouldn't! Fake, cheat, liar. You must have some doctor paid off. I won't let you drag my family through it!"
Then the lunge.
What was he thinking?
He wasn't.
The two men ended up on the ground, arms struggling to throttle the other. He recalled the tape he once rented, where two men went into a caged ring and fought till only one man was standing, no holds barred. Strange, to be one of those men...
Perhaps it was a matter of technical ineptitude of his opponent, perhaps it was simply his will was stronger, but he ended up on top of the other man, his hands around the small throat... such a small throat, really more like the throat of a chicken or something, not really a mans throat at all. It took a bit of pressure to keep his hands there and as the flailing began, he had to really power through it, his first instinct was to stop. So he looked around to take his mind of the whole thing, first he saw the watch on the right hand of the guy -- 1:23 AM -- and then he spied the photo on the ground next to them.
His grandmother in front of the church, kissing her boss on the lips, the cross on the top of the steeple at the rear...
He looked up at the cross looking down on them. It was in the front. The cross in the photo was in the rear.
He took his hands off the neck, black and bruised, and picked up the photo. He compared the two again and again.
"You got the wrong church."
"What," whispered the man, coughing after the effort.
"You got the wrong church. This church is across town. This is the family church."
He looked at the photo. He noticed in the bottom corner, the fingers from the hands of the picture taker.
His grandfathers hands!
"You've got the wrong church, the wrong guy, the wrong everything."
He handed the photo to the other man to look at and the other man took it with his left hand, looked at the photo and then the church and back again; when he realized the difference, the energy seemed to drain out and he fell back onto the ground.
The man, seemingly victorious in that moment, was struck by something odd and he began a quick cataloging: both men were left handed, both men were approximately the same height, same hair color, same build.
In his mind, the slot machine with the endlessly revolving slots came to a quick stop; jackpot, and the lights and bells went crazy while money poured out like a wild flood.
"****... I think you are my brother".
They stared at each other and then, suddenly, began to laugh... an inappropiate laugh and strange. Yet laugh they did, until both were on the ground, tears coming to their eyes.
