The Alternate Truth, prologue

In response to @DanPhantom123 https://www.theprose.com/post/764252/the-alternate-truth

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It'd been a number of years prior. Who's to say how'd it all started. Peck only knew that they'd been left to fend for themselves. Like all the stuff was there, more or less. Adults came and went, even gave a pat or smile of recognition sometimes. Opened packages, napkins were around and they knew where there were garbage cans and utensils. Jimmy was the younger so it was up to Peck to show him, if he wanted. If either wanted, cuz what little brother necessarily follows any directions?

But he did.

"You sit up here. Can you reach? Do it yourself. Nobody's gonna be behind you all the time," said Peck parroting his parents' chiding and Jimmy would scurry up the stool in the kitchenette bar and reach into a bag of Doritos for breakfast. They'd wash it down with something from the fridge. Maybe they'd share a cup but honestly Peck was apt to drink milk directly from the container. Jimmy wasn't big enough yet. So, he did the brotherly thing. Poured him some.

Guess reaching for things becomes second nature. When you're growing into it, there's no line to draw at your doorstep. There's a gnawing at the stomach and we learn from side banter that that is called hunger, and you fill it, with something. And things come in packages, from box buildings, that somehow arrive, and obviously you see eventually that somebody goes to get. Well Peck had initiative. Jimmy had that backward curiosity to sit and wait. Until one day he too got up with the undertaker's dream, to be a go-getter. He'd been watching.

When Peck asked whatchya thinking about, he'd be random and evasive with words that didn't fit in a child's mouth. It was like a precursor, "I think of scales."

Whatever. Or really creeping Peck out he might sigh and say, "Cousin Hate's last breath."

He had a tendency to carry on like that in some family sense. Like the way he basically clung to Peck, followed him around like a mother Hen. Guess you have to learn from someone, and your observation, forever in a question, is maybe not going to jive with your experience.

So then, it's the beginning. You learn about Alternate Truth.

Jimmy did. Peck just didn't know yet well.

09.04.2023

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