Chapter 16: Peace of Mind

Dear Journal:

It's been a long time since I've been to the Graveyard. As in, way too long.

A while back, I remembered talking shit about the place. Now, I don't remember why I did.

Oh, right...Full of dead people.

But now it doesn't seem so...spooky bad. Now it feels more like a necessary evil to me. All the dead people need to rest somewhere.

That way, if you need to talk to a dead relative, you know for sure where they are. I needed to know that, at least.

Having been away from this place for so long, I had to remember where he ended up. I had a feeling he was somewhere way in the back.

Lo and behold, I was right.

Prologue

Dear Journal:

I have no idea why the hell I decided to start writing one of these. Maybe it's because a few days ago, he was still around.

I'm gonna be brutally honest: I never always got along with Iqbal.

There were days I told him he sucked, to put it nicely. I even blamed him for Mom leaving.

A day didn't go by without me thinking of some awesome prank for him to deal with.

Hey, I figured he needed to lighten up once in a while. But no. He'd always say something like, "VJ, stop pulling that shit!"

The guy was lazy, never cared much for working. And even if I wasn't messing with him, I somehow got into trouble.

"Why are you such a bad kid?" He'd say. "Why can't you be more like your brother?" I guess sometimes he just needed a scapegoat.

At least we had Miraj there to keep things from getting too intense.

My little bro showed wisdom that most at that age have no chance of getting. He'd always try to get Iqbal to lay off me, and he'd try to get me to do the same.

Somehow, Miraj always knew when an argument was about to get out of control.

But he still needed some kind of parental guidance. He won't admit he did, but after Mom left, he was at a loss as to what to do.

I think we all were.

Then came that day. All I'm going to say is this: I may not have liked Iqbal...

But that doesn't mean I wanted him to die.

(End of Prologue.)