My brother was born in 1979.
I can't help but take notice of that year whenever I see it, wherever I see it
But especially when I hear it.
Every time I meet people and we get into a conversation about age, I tell them mine and they mention theirs, I quickly do the math in my head.
Trying to see if they fall under that dear category of people, if they meet the criteria to be treated with special care.
Nineteen seventy-nine.
I stop.
Stop breathing.
Impact is bigger if they just say it without me calculating.
I have a short circuit in my heart.
Brain starts imagining my brother being that age.
Forcing my neurons to form the image of him.
Flickering some unreal photos of me still being younger than him even though I can’t project that character.
I check the wrinkles around their eyes.
Analyze their every move, gesture, smile, height.
Haircut.
Grey hairs.
I wonder about his looks.
Their matured expressions, colour of their voice, huskiness, would he sound like them, I try to hear him.
Even when I was 16, I observed people who were 20, looking for him.
Forty, he would have been forty this year.
Wishful thinking never stops.
It’s there, all the time, in the back of my head.
What would his job be , would he be married, kids?
I can’t escape those thoughts, it’s stronger than me.
Seemingly just a number.
But not any number.
Not to me.
‘79.
