Chapter 1
“What happens after you die?” That is arguably the most disputed question in all of human history. People have spent their whole lives devoted to finding an answer and haven’t gotten any closer to finding the answer. The general consensus among everyone is one of two answers. One is that after life it’s over and that there isn’t anything after death and the other is that the is some type of afterlife making what we’re living in some intermediary stage which determines where we go for the rest of eternity.
These two sides have been fighting both each other and themselves forever. Atheist vs religious, Christian vs Islam, Islam vs everyone and the list continues. Each group thinking their belief is superior to the other should conform to it.
The ironic thing about it all is that a lot of these beliefs are very similar with slight differences. The only difference between Judaism and Christianity is that Christians believe that Jesus was the messiah and the Jews didn’t. Muslims believe that Jesus was just a prophet. It’s crazy how these slight differences have sparked multiple wars throughout history. It says a lot about human nature when people who believe god commanded them not to kill other people proceed to commit genocides because of minor differences in beliefs.
Not that it matters anyway because in the end it doesn’t matter what you believed happened after death, death will come after everyone indiscriminately. Well I guess I shouldn’t say that these notions are totally meaningless. They do have some uses in keeping order in society. If this weren’t the case, then there wouldn’t be anything stopping most people from killing each other. Not that it doesn’t happen because it definitely does, just at a much lower rate with a couple for exceptions. The foundations of most moral beliefs is rooted in the idea that after you die, there will be consequences for your actions in life.
For the exceptions to that rule, these are some of the most interesting people for me to think about. I mean think about it like this, they are prime examples of human nature at its most primal state. Like what do you think drives someone to kill someone in cold blood over a look, or to hack someone into pieces. Now I don’t know exactly, but I believe that part of it is some deranged power trip. Like look at those examples of police brutality, their friends and family always come to their defense about how they’re such good people, so what do you think changes that person into a person who will kill a non resisting suspect because of the way that light refracts off their skin.
Now I don’t bring them up to make you sympathize for them, because there isn’t anything I want more than for people like that to burn in hell. It’s not right for people like that to be able to destroy entire families when they feel like it.
If i’m being honest, i don’t know which category i believe in. On one hand, I grew up in a christian family, so most atheist beliefs don’t really sit well with me. On the other, with all my experiences in life so far, it’s hard to believe in an all powerful god upstairs that’s looking down on everyone with love. If that was true then why is the world so terrible. Also, an all powerful god wouldn’t have let what happened to my family happen.
The way I see it is like this, We don’t live that long here and we don’t get another chance at life, so don’t be a dick and ruin it for everyone else. What happens after, I don’t really know. I want to believe that we go to heaven and all that, but there are some problems that come with that. Steve Jobs once said, "No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it, and that is how it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.” I don’t know how to feel about
Now at this point you might be wondering ‘who is this weirdo who keeps talking about death and why does he know so much?’ and I guess it wouldn’t be much of a story. much less a good one if you didn’t know who the story is about.
My name is Ethan Reynolds and currently i’m 16 years old. I was born on December 18 in the Bronx to my mother Millie Reynolds. I’m the youngest of five boys that my mother gave birth to. Another thing to know is that out of the five of my mother’s kids, only two are left me and my brother Micah. Please don’t say sorry for your loss. After Darius died, all the condolences seemed fake and reused. And definitely don’t say that to my Mom. These days nobody knows how she will react.
My father Lakeith Reynolds died in a car crash two years after I was born, so I barely remember him. My older brother Adrian used to say that I had dad’s dark brown eyes. We only have one picture of my dad in the house, an old photo of him and my brothers that’s on the coffee table. He took Micah to the basketball court for the first time that day. He was carrying Micah on his broad shoulders with a smile like there wasn’t a care in the world. My other siblings stood around them, Adrian on the left of dad smiling like he was taking a school picture, Lucas on the right with his big glasses and drawing pad, and Darius crouching in front of dad doing a superhero pose. Mom took down the rest of the pictures of him down because it was too much for her. Despite her pain, she couldn’t take that one down because it was too cute. Back then even though we weren’t a complete family, we were still together and that’s all we needed.
________________________________________________________________________________
There’s another picture of all of us that I found in one of our old picture boxes. I took it before my mom hid the rest of the pictures of my deceased family members. It was one that was taken during thanksgiving one year. It was one of the happiest times of my life. Which when you think about it is kinda sad considering the fact that I was 4 when the picture was taken. It was a picture of all six of us (my father had died two years before) at the thanksgiving table right before we devoured all the food.
At one head of the table was Adrian. Adrian was the spitting image of dad. They both had low cut black hair that was partly uncombed but looked fine. They both had deep brown eyes and defined noses on their faces. Like my father, Adrian was a tall lovable giant always wanting to help out wherever they could. Adrian really stepped up in being the man of the house after Dad died. Most of the time he was more a parent to me than just my older brother. It’s kinda ironic now that I think about it, he was the one that looked the most like dad. Being the oldest out of the five of us put a lot of pressure on him because back then Ma was always working.
The thing about Adrian though was he would never show it. He always remained that strong, dependable father figure that me and the rest of my siblings definitely needed. One day he took all of us to the park, and we saw a mugging taking place across the street. Being the hero that he was, he ran to intervene and save the person, but ended up getting shot three times himself. We rushed over to him while the ambulance was called. As were crying over him, he told us don’t worry and that he was going to be fine. He didn’t make it. That day was nine years ago. It happened so long ago, yet the pain from everything still feels so fresh. His erratic breathing slowing down, his grip on our hands lessening, the light in his eyes slowly fading and the cold stillness of his body. I’ll never forget how still he was. It keeps me up at night to this day.
On Adrian’s left was Lucas. He was on the stockier side but had a soft face that you couldn’t be afraid of him at all. He had thick curly dark brown hair that was always unkempt. I can’t actually remember a time when he would have it done. Lucas was the lovable nerd of the family. He loved books and was really smart. He would always help me with my homework when I was younger. He also loved drawing and you could almost always find him with his drawing pad periodically adjusting his big rimmed glasses. Lucas was the most peace loving person I’ve ever met. I remember he stopped me from killing a spider because it ‘wasn’t hurtin’ nobody’. He then proceeded to put the spider into a cup and take it outside.
After the death of Adrian, mom went into a depression again and this time it was Lucas’s turn to be the provider of the family. He began working triple shifts at three jobs to help take care of all of us. Unlike Adrian though, he wasn’t that good at hiding the stress it caused him making us all feel even worse about everything. But being the person he was, he wouldn’t let us help at all working himself to the bone. He died two years after Adrian did. His death really messed up the rest of us. It was very hard for us to come to terms as to why someone would kill him. Especially in the brutal way in which he was killed. Mom found his chopped up body in a garbage bag in a dumpster two weeks after he went missing.
On Adrian’s right was Darius. Darius took after my mom a lot in appearance. With their slender frames and their hazel eyes. They both had very soft spoken looks about them. But don’t let that fool you, Darius was the fighter of the family. When he was younger, he would always be getting in trouble for fighting at school. He was the most passionate out of all of us. He treated everything with the same intensity no matter how small which would usually end up with him arguing with Lucas over pretty much everything.
He took Lucas’ death the hardest. I remember he pretty much locked himself into his room for the next two months. When he finally came back to society, he became an activist against gang violence in the hood and was extra vocal about social justice. This unfortunately made him a target and eventually he was shot and killed on the middle of the street. It was at this point mom started using drugs and was in a slump so bad i didn’t know what could bring her out. Micah had to drop out of school to get a job to provide for all of us.
Micah was right next to Lucas. Micah was the athlete of the family. He would always tell us about how he was gonna make the league one day. And from the way he committed to his goal, he was definitely on track to make it to the league too. He was 6’2 with an athletic build and had the best hops I’ve ever seen. He was on his high school varsity team since he was in the 6th grade and has a little competitive streak in him too. With his hazel eyes and his rounded face that was always kept neat, he was a bit of the ladies man. Since he was two years older than me, we were really close even among the rest of my siblings. Especially considering that we were the last two kids of my mother left. There’s now a huge bond between us that isn’t easily broken. After Darius died, he gave up his dream of playing pro and dropped out of school his senior year to get a job. With mom out of the picture financially, he did everything he could to keep us afloat. This led him to getting caught up with some bad people in our neighborhood, but he would never do anything illegal. He would only do what he could to make sure we even had food that night.
And then there’s me the youngest right next to my mom at the other side of the table. I was this short kid with pudgy little arms and long hair in braids that my mother had done. I also had this giant smile on my face. God I can’t remember the last time I truly smiled. That’s really sad to hear now that I think about it. There isn’t anything really special about me i guess. I mean before all the deaths, my teachers used to say that I was good in school. But recently I’ve been coasting on average grades because I didn’t see the point of trying to get straight A’s. It’s not like I could go to college anyway, there was no way in hell that my family could afford that. I did love reading though. It was my way of escaping my shitty life.
My mom used to say that I got it from my father, back when she would say stuff. These days, you’re lucky if you can get a conversation longer than 2 minutes with her. What I loved about reading was that each book contained a completely new world filled with many characters, most of which lived much happier lives than me. I would use the characters that I read to live through them and see what was so special about life anyway. Still haven’t found out the answer to that yet. At this point, I’m pretty numb to most things around me, it just hurts too much
I hope soon that this chapter of my life ends soon.
