Seeing he was damaged....

So dinner was passing in silence (of sorts) with each of us imagining just what our brother was going through. Those of us who may have seen a few of the ‘horror films’ of the period, may have imagined things a little differently. Mind you, since there were no such things as VCR’s or DVD’s, it was only the ‘horror’ movies that may have been shown on a Sunday afternoon on a wet or snowy day, when we were allowed to watch something before father watched his sports. Which means I would be a “general’ release horror film. Where amongst the bad acting, low budget sets, constant mist and fog and filming, you definitely had to use your imagination. But how terrifying were the regular cast members. Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Performing in any number of mad professor, evil henchmen, Dracula, mummy or vengeful killer roles. Your imagination would engage very quickly and even in the middle of the day, frights would still happen in broad daylight. Though if it was snowing outside, then the curtains may have be drawn adding to the atmosphere.

With such knowledge and experiences we may have thought our brothers brain may have been severely damaged and right now, the doctors were setting about replacing it. Perhaps they would be looking for a donor? Perhaps they could replace it with a smart rat (okay, probably none of us thought that at the time) or a chimpanzee (that would have come up). Our brother could return home craving bananas and other fruit. Wanting to swing from the rafters (see a little imagination).  Or at least, we sat at the table, quietly eating the dinner, wondering if he would pull through. He had definitely not looked well as he was being taken out by the ambulance officers. The tension was palpable. The dinner was stressful. I finished what was on my plate. Then the shock came. “You had better go back to the room and wait for dad.” My sister suddenly said. I must have looked stunned. I knew there was pineapple upside down pudding for dessert. “Go on.”

I stood up and left the table glancing into the lit oven where the pudding was baking. Golden and delicious looking.  How cruel was this. “What about pudding?” I asked. “Mum said just dinner.” My sister replied. No doubt aware of how cruel this sounded. “That’s not… “ I started to say and then with one look from my sister, I stopped what I was about to say and turned from the table to revisit my bedroom to await my fathers return.

(Continued tomorrow)