Ray's Picture

My brother Ray was stout, and didn't care. I myself never paid attention to it but everyone else certainly did. What I did pay attention to was his morose attitude that normally would get sparked if you did mention anything about his weight. I remember the day when my Dad did once.

“Ray your fat, admit it.” He looked down at Dad having a glare of both rage and disinterest. “I wouldn’t mind admitting this because I don’t see you do anything else.” Next Ray looked confused, “What you mean?” Dad stood up from his chair, readying himself for a statement. “I mean that I wouldn’t mind your weight if you were more preoccupied with something else, like drawing, your not bad at that. However nowadays you only seem interested in just getting fat, so I got to encourage  you now to start the most basic thing, sports, and I know how reluctant you are with that.” Ray stared perplexingly at Dad, understanding his shrewd but oddly interesting message. “Is getting fat the only thing you think I do?” Ray asks. “I don’t know, at the moment yes, you haven’t got a bad metabolism, yet some how you seem to get larger, that’s the only thing I ever notice in you.” Ray started to look very sad, up at Dad, he was only 13, what does dad expect him to do now? “What do you expect me to do then?” Ray spoke. “Well, like I said Ray, do sports, the only thing I can advise you to do nowadays, I don’t see you do anything else.” Ray seemed to have heard enough, he made his way to his room, and Dad rightfully did not say anything else.

An hour later I went into Ray’s room to cheer him up. He room was dark only illuminated by his small desk lamp he was sitting at. I approach the desk and Ray turned round revealing a distressed face.  “You alright?” I asked, “No!” was immediately replied. He turned back round to his desk as I got closer to see what he was doing. “What are you doing?” I asked in advanced. Ray moved away from his desk to reveal a picture he drew of someone or something it was quite cartoon like. It wasn’t finished but from but I figured it was meant to be Dad. “Is it Dad?” I asked. Ray nodded his head with pride and accomplishment, we both had a laugh.