Artwork by Tyler Landry

I apologize; this is not about me. This is about Joseph, and the first thing Joseph teaches you is to hiccup. To be like him. The second thing he teaches you is to stop talking about yourself in the first person. I’ll refrain from abiding by this rule for now, for the sake of clarity. Besides, there are too many Raymonds to keep track of. Each one present in a different draft. But still, if you wish to separate yourself from the other stones and shrubs and scuttling fauna, if you want to be something other than the self-obsessed and non-evolved sack of organs you used to be, if you just want to be a good human, then refer to yourself objectively or not at all. Yes, “I” is for the birds, as are “me” and “we” and “us.” It’s a small gesture, sure, as small as a hiccup, but still. This much is clear now because of Joseph. These are not his words. I have no record of his words anymore, and it’s beyond my ability to reproduce them in any satisfactory way. But still. You can imagine him saying something better, something more powerful, rushing to finish his thought before the next hiccup came, and then letting his words hang in the air while he’d start singing along with anything he could find, any melody he could catch, even if he didn’t know the words, and in-between verses, hiccupping like a mad fool, fists clenched, teeth biting his lip, mind never stopping. Never, never stopping.

Immortals don’t live forever; they just live until the end of time. Joseph said that too, or something like it, though he was not immortal. It should have been my opening line.

I apologize; I am not a writer. I write, but I tell you I was once a scientist. In the beginning, before I met Joseph, before I even knew I had a brother, I was a scientist. Now I am a fugitive. No, I am not a writer. And this is not a biography. It’s not even a mystery. It is a jumbled mess. It is a garbled account of some vague causality that led me to my brother. And really, how can I possibly explain this situation to you, when by the time you read it you’ll have an explanation of your own, and mine will certainly not be better, no, mine can only be much, much worse, and the simplicity of my explanation, that lack of poetry of the imagination will subject me to the worst type of ridicule. They will murder me for this book. If they can find me. What’s more, for a long time, I didn’t care about my own lifetime – the danger of putting such things on paper! I can be naughty, I admit, as much as I am hyperbolic.

Raymond Day and Joseph Stadme. Joseph Stadme and Raymond Day. To write about one is to write about the other. To write about one is to write about the other, because if it wasn’t for my own research and fame, Joseph wouldn’t have either, and it is safe to say neither of us would even know we had a brother. Biography, autobiography, it doesn’t matter.

But listen: Joseph always said there is nothing more romantic than dying under the moonlight. Joseph died in the sun. It is the killer’s responsibility to tell you how Joseph died. It is my responsibility. But it is not guilt driving me. It is hope. Joseph was not afraid. Of death, that clanging marauder! Of time, that silent beat. I was afraid. But not him. No, I feel no guilt for his death, neither am I guilt-ridden for making us all aware of the risks of spending time. Even in the beginning, before I knew I had a brother, even during those brief moments of infamy – and this may surprise you – I never felt guilty. So many deaths. So many lifetimes.

You’re reading a rough draft.