Red Cat

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I’d seen him angry plenty of times. I’d seen him dismissive, contemptuous, reproachful, and mocking too- and, more often than not, I’d seen that bad karma pointed in my direction. But in the thirty-four years I’d known him, I’d never seen my brother quite like this before. I’d never seen him scared.

David ran a hand through his ginger hair and knocked it from its slick alignment. He rose from my sofa and whisked imaginary dust from his spotless gray trousers and paced again before the long wall of windows. I shook my head, as much from the surprise of him turning up at my door on a Monday morning- or, indeed, any time- as from what I’d heard.

“Jesus Christ, David- on the Internet? What the hell were you thinking?”

He stopped to look out at the rooftops and at the sun, struggling up an iron January sky. Reflected in the window glass, his face was lean and sharp-featured- fairer-haired, lighter-eyed, more sour and lined than my own, but still too similar. At six feet tall he was barely an inch shorter than I, but he seemed smaller than that now. His smile was tight and bitter.

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