morning, you absolute menace.

It’s your birthday, which means for exactly one day I’m legally required to be nice about you. So I’ve front-loaded the abuse. Stay in bed. This’ll take a minute.

You’re my little brother. You also still cannot parallel park. Both of these things will be addressed.

scroll — the evidence is filed below ↓

the evidence room

Exhibits A through C.

Tap a frame to flip it. Don’t shoot the messenger; I just keep the records.

Exhibit A

The haircut. 2014.

tap to flip →

You asked the barber for “the footballer one” and walked out looking like a startled pineapple. You kept it for eight months.

Exhibit B

The karaoke. New Year’s.

tap to flip →

Three minutes into “Mr. Brightside” you forgot it had more than one verse. You hummed the rest. Confidently. A stranger applauded out of sheer pity.

Exhibit C

The “famous” pasta.

tap to flip →

You call it “your signature dish.” It is a jar of sauce and the confidence of a man who has never once read a recipe. And yet I’d eat it every week.

RECEIPT

things you actually did · itemised

Drove 3 hrs at midnight when my car diedno questions
Sat through every bad film I made you watchall of them
Remembered the anniversary I forgotcovered for me
Made mum laugh on the worst week of the yearpriceless
Picked up the phone, every single time2am rate

TOTAL OWEDa lot, mate

no refunds · thank you for being you

the one nobody else knows

You were nine. I was the big brother who knew everything, obviously. There was a thunderstorm and you padded into my room at 1am, too proud to say you were scared, so you just stood there and announced you’d come to “check I was alright.”

I let you stay. We made a fort out of the duvet and you fell asleep in about ninety seconds, mid-sentence, and I lay awake the rest of the night because you snored like a small broken motorbike.

I’ve never told you that I wasn’t annoyed. I’ve thought about that night more times than I can count — the small, ridiculous honour of being the person someone comes to when the sky is falling in.

You still are that person, by the way. You just snore less now. Marginally.

alright. jokes over.

today you turn

tap each candle to blow it out

Here’s the bit I mean.

I take the mick because it’s easier than saying the real thing, which is this: I got handed the best person I know and didn’t even have to do anything to deserve you. You were just there, in the next room, for the whole of my life.

However old you are today, you’re still the nine-year-old in the doorway to me — and I’m still glad, every single time, that you came to check I was alright.

Happy birthday, you menace. Now get out of bed.

— your big brother. always. (still won’t teach you to park.)