It was time to have our afternoon meal, even though it was

always the same porridge, somehow it always induced a sense of excitement in us. We all sat on the floor, patiently waiting

for the translucent sludge to fall on our plates, we all were

delighted to eat except for my brother who was the eldest of us

and was probably the most erratic person I have ever known, there was a sense of spite on his face as if he just came back from a murder scene but his emotions were no match when compared to the primal instinct of hunger and so he surrendered to the sludge

just like we all did. My one-hour banishment was over, and Time was of the essence as I had two more deliveries left, the packaging was soiled with my

blood but I could not afford to replace it, I just hoped that

inside the package was anything else than just food. The package was heavy, so my brother helped me load it on my back,

recently he has been pretty generous and has started showing some sense of normalcy towards us four, it may be because of the girl

from house number four, I had seen them sharing a conversation one

evening down the alley, personally I did not know much about their family, but she seemed to be a pretty futile as a human being. She used to cut leaves from the rose bush in her garden, and it made me so confused as those leaves would eventually grow back anyway,

if you actually need to get rid of the plant then just dissect the stem, you do not even need to fully severe it, it would dry up eventually on its own but a little futility is what my brother really needed, to fracture his idealistic world view and his longing for perfection. It amuses me how contradictory emotions dance beautifully in such asymmetry.

My mind was brought back to the present by a loud thump from a car door, the family was leaving, and I was shocked to see such a profound effect of

the news on the common mind but I was not the one who was thunderstruck, my brother was blank as if he had seen a ghost, I could see the longing in his eyes but his face was devoid of emotions, it was the feeling of

being hit by a truck and realizing you never existed in the first place but to be honest, the unexpected departure of House Four was surely a sudden turn of events but it would be an understatement to say that my

brother’s reaction Caught me By Surprise.