Sometimes he hated all of them--they who had made a funny
vulgarity of his name; Kazem, the creator of the nickname, who solved
his stress by physically accosting him; Kumpee who always flayed and
flouted him at every chance; and Suthep who treated him with the blades
of indifference (the worst of all weapons). He vehemently hated them
sometimes and yet--
He imagined the mosquito speaking to him. "And yet you'll gain
the antibodies of hard, fortified indifference from the illness of
hate. It isn't so bad. It is a practical emotion that has been
demonized as of late by Buddhist and Christian practitioners although
thoroughly embraced by the Jewish, Moslem, and Hindu world. I'd think
it over carefully before exorcizing myself of it. It is just one more
darkly pragmatic aspect of life as needed imperatively as
microorganisms are needed to lunch on the deceased."
"I don't want dark things. I don't want to hate them. Tell me
what to do so that I won't hate them."
"Hmm...You are such an idealist. Well, Suthep couldn't care less
about you except when he cares to sting you with not caring but he is
the one who taught you to play football and takraw, and although Kazem
violates you repugnantly in painful tactile thrashings much worse than
Kumpee's socks and sneakers ever did to your olfactory nerves he is the
one who saved you from drowning and being beaten to a pulp by your
father. Also he probably does genuinely care about family despite his
bombastic proclamations of now being the eldest brother. He is the one
who stifled the sadistic belittling of you that would have pulverized
your self-esteem to dust had the father and eldest son been left to
inveigh against you incessantly. When you are financially free and
independent you can kill off all three of them from the present and
remember the children they were. Then, you won't hate them any longer.
Maybe then you will even feel love but you will have to kill them off