Speechless
I was twelve years-nine months-two weeks-three days old when I said my first word and twelve years-nine months-two weeks-four days old when I said my last. It was dinnertime and we were all seated at the table, both mother and father at opposite ends. Eugene sat across from me recalling his day in such detail that it resembled a novel rather than a simple answer to the same evening question “How was your day?”
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He always had a lot to say.  I didn’t listen but counted the syllables in the words he used.  His words were large and complex and seemed as if he was a dictionary rather than my seventeen year old brother. I liked watching his lips move as he formed the words and they emerged from his mouth, he had tamed them. There was an art form to speaking, to formulating the thoughts into words and sentences and I always sat in awe observing each intricate detail of his talent.
I ate dinner every night across from a stranger or rather a mythical creature symbolizing perfection and impossibilities. Most of his qualities were unrealistic. His face was flawless and resembled that of a porcelain doll, his skin was a light tint of maple, his hair dark and curly, and his figure broad and towering. And he was always smiling like he had taken everything the world had to offer and he was proud. I looked nothing like him.
I couldn’t smile; my face was stuck with a perfectly horizontal line plastered across connecting my checks from one to another and preventing my check bones from caving in. Mother and father both lacked color in their skin and face, and their faces had become wrinkled with time. Both had tiny frail bodies and exaggerated facial features. Father’s nose was too big for his face it seemed to expand onto his checks and collide with his check bones. Mother’s ears were too small. Most times they were hidden by her broad check bones or untamed hair and her eyes were tiny and slanted to the point were it impaired her vision. It bothered me to look like them with there cascading noses and vanishing ears and I was jealous of Eugene and his physical perfection.
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I hated peas. Even though I never ate them they were always on my plate, every Tuesday night. I hated Tuesdays. It was predictable, always predictable, peas, potatoes, and steak. Eugene had stopped talking for a moment to consume a forkful of peas; He always ate all of his dinner. No one noticed when my lips started to move, both mother and father were preoccupied with the forkful of peas entering Eugene’s perfectly shaped mouth.

“My day was fine, thanks for asking?” I said sarcastically while shooting bitter glances at both ends of the table.

Eugene choked, loudly, so much so that the last part of the sentence was muffled by his gagging. Father ran up behind him as if to attempt the Heimlich maneuver but his arms wouldn’t fit around Eugene’s broad chest. So instead father took his fist and beat repeatedly on Eugene’s back until the peas were finally forced up. The force from my father’s frantic pounding sent the peas lurching into mid air, they traveled clear across the table before finally landing on my plate of untouched food.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I hated peas. Even though I never ate them they were on my plate, every Tuesday night and now there were an extra three to accompany the rest of undigested peas.

“FYI I don’t like peas, and why doesn’t Eugene look like the rest of us?”

Color came into mothers face but it wasn’t a good color it was that rosy shade she painted her fingernails. Eugene wasn’t smiling anymore. I tried to distinguish his emotion based on the curvatures of his face but it was confusing. There was no praise or even acknowledgement over my first words, only silence.
Just as fast as the expression vanished from Eugene’s clear flawless facial pallet it was replaced with that smile. Almost deliberately he took his fork, scoped up the remainder of the peas and shoveled them into his mouth.