Day 238 - Responsible

 Responsible

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

Nef was in his backyard gardening. If gardening meant taking a hatchet to weeds. He didn’t know if this method would be effective at all, but there was certainly a great deal of emotional release that went along with it.

Nef was surprised when Cynthia turned the corner around the garage and approached. It had been years since they had spoken. She had been off living on her father’s money and he had been very vocal about how disappointed he was in her doing so. He had totally been unfair, but then again, she made no offer of a seat on the road with, so he was particularly bitter upon realizing how low he ranked on her list of things to do.

She was already angry. Nef didn’t think he had done anything recently that she would know of, but one could never tell.

“You brother has gone missing.”

Nef breathed a small sigh of relief that this wasn’t about him.

“Half-brother.”

She rolled her eyes, which he could not see because he was not looking, but he knew she had done it all the same.

“He’s gone. And he took the hammer.”

“Which hammer?”

“Which… Wha…? You mean there’s more than one?”

“Of course, there’s more than one. You think that all hammers can do the same job? They design tools for specific purposes, you know.”

“Says the man using a hatchet to try and chop weeds.”

“I didn’t say that some things didn’t have more than one purpose.”

Nef stood up, dusted his knees off and picked up his hatchet.

“Well, I better get to it.”

“Are you sure that’s going to work?”

“Am I sure that this hatchet, which I use for gardening, is going to work in capturing or killing my half-brother? Is that really what you want to do? Come here for my help and then question literally everything I say or do?”

“I just wanted to know if you had an actual plan.”

“I don’t know. But I will have a sharp edge and can inflict all sorts of damage and he will have to land successful and powerful blows for his hammer to kill me. Hopefully I can cut him enough times that he’s too weak to pick it up and swing it properly.”

“I would suck to get smashed in the face with a hammer.”

“You might miss this pretty face.”

“I might. Try not to get it smashed.”

As if it were that easy, thought Nef. His half-brother was ten times the fighter he was. Nef could only hope that in the process of going mad he had lost a step or two when it came to precision and strategy.

“I will certainly try.”