The Morelli Bros. (Chapter I, Part V)

Posted on February 23, 2015 by R. Richardsson

Time has a funny way of distorting for those who find themselves trapped in a disaster, suffering from a loss, or experiencing unbearable pain. Seconds stretch into minutes, minutes into hours, hours into days, and days into eternities untold. Survivors later recount every detail as if waking from a frozen world where they’d had time to record every minute bit of information available.

So it was for young Mario Morelli, the oldest of two brothers who, before this moment, had been nothing more than a couple of plumbers carrying on their family business. At the moment the brick crumbled from the corner of the building, he heard, more than felt, something bursting up from the concrete below him. He held onto a majority of the brick, still clutching to it for dear life, while the rest rained down on his face and flew around him into the darkness which had swallowed two before him.

He cringed as something ricocheted off of the ground and into the side of his face, tearing a long gash that begun just behind his right jawbone, crossed over his nose, and ended over his left eye. Seconds later, though he could only watch from behind the shroud of slow-motion now covering his senses, his arms pulled in to cover his newly wounded face.

The darkness reached hungrily for him, and a part of him even heard it sigh contentedly as it’s cold embrace wrapped around his legs while pulling him in. Like a beast of myth, the darkness swallowed Mario in one gulp.

To his relief, the darkness wasn’t as complete as it had looked from the outside. There was as much visibility as one would expect on a foggy night, near a large body of water. Though only a few feet were visible around him, he at least had the comfort of knowing that he would see what was coming in the end.

Through herculean effort, he managed to tuck himself into as ball, pulling his limbs as close to his body as possible, as he prepared for the blow that was sure to come. He could feel his body accelerating as it was drawn by the unseen force into whatever hell awaited him. The ground whipped by in a blur beneath him, and the darkness crept in. His gut told him that he was farther above the ground than when he had started, though now it was impossible to tell, except that he had just passed a window that could have been a few, or several, feet above ground.

“Mama mia,” he exclaimed in falsetto. His voice cracked near the end, and before he could even take in another breath, he was no longer in motion.

Debris floated in the air around him, as it, too, was halted as suddenly as he. As he drew a shaky breath, the ground below exploded as a large, green pipe extended-

“What-”

-several feet-

“…the-”

-into the-

“…f-”

air, and just as suddenly, sucked him, and the debris around him, into the darkness below.

The Morelli Bros. (Chapter I, Part IV)

Posted on January 29, 2015 by R. Richardsson

With solemn expressions, they gazed into the darkness of the alley before them. A trail of blood was the only marker that anyone had recently been here, for only silence was left to greet them. Over the street behind them, the lamp flickered erratically. Something was in the air, a smell that neither of them recognized, a rancid promise of death for any brave or foolish enough to continue.

“Wha-” Luigi began to ask. The rest of the words, much like the breath from his lungs, were stolen from him as the air was suddenly, ferociously, drawn into the dark. Several seconds passed, seemingly into minutes, and the brothers found themselves being pulled along with it.

The ground rumbled beneath their feet and debris fell from the buildings on either side of them. “Mario,” the young of the two exclaimed. It was the first word either of them were able to utter since this had begun, but it was a detail that neither would later remember.

Luigi slid past his older brother, trapped in the clutches of the unseen force. Desperately, he turned and reached toward his stockier sibling, seeking with hands that were just out of reach of the other’s. Mario, who had just managed to grasp onto the corner of the building to his left, could only watch in horror as events unfurled before him.

It was as if in slow motion. As his brother slid past, he spun himself ninety degrees, until the two were face to face. His brother reached toward him as the wind sucked his feet out from under him.

“No! Luigi,” Mario screamed with new-found breath, but by the time the words were out, his brother was gone. The darkness had swallowed him whole.

“No,” he screamed with raw emotion.

What happened next took only a split second of reality, but for the plumber in red and blue, it felt as if an eternity. It was a moment that through the eyes of another, determined what kind of man he truly was.

He held onto the corner of the building by the tips of his left hand’s fingers, a grip which had begun slipping, along with his will to continue. There was no explanation for what was happening around him. He had no words for what had taken the woman they had come to rescue, nor could he fathom the loss he had just suffered.

The pain of watching his brother being stolen from him was great, but greater still was his own resolve. He would not succumb to whatever it was that had ahold of him! With a grunt, he rolled his right shoulder over, turning himself so that he was able to grab ahold of the wall with his free hand.

He knew that he wouldn’t last much longer. Either the darkness was growing stronger, or his arms, weaker, and it was only a matter of time before it claimed him as well. He growled in determination, fighting with every last bit of strength he could muster, but it was no match for the power he was up against.

He had managed to pull himself only a couple of inches closer to the street when the brick crumbled, sending him spiraling head over heels into the darkness.

The Morelli Bros. (Prologue, ii.)

Posted on June 16, 2014 by R. Richardsson

When his sons were ten, just a few years before he became entirely dependent upon the bottle, the Morelli family set sail for America. Rocco had turned into a miserable excuse for a man, unwashed and unkempt, but he still worked just as hard as he had before his sons were born.

They made a small home for themselves on the outskirts of Brooklyn in an apartment that was only big enough to be comfortable for one person, while two would have been a crowd. To top it off, Rocco had no where else to store his tools.

The boys never complained. They never cried, and despite the fact that there was hardly ever any room left for them to play or sleep, they always found a way to make the best out of their situation.

Mario, the oldest of the two, had the strongest interest in his father’s trade. Whenever Rocco was still sober, he constantly grilled him for information about the various tools and equipment that was lying about. When Rocco was too drunk to talk, he studied from the various texts and manuals he found lying around. His younger brother Luigi was just as bright as he, but his talents lie more with how he interacted with people. Though he was a gangling youth, taller and often clumsier than his brother, he had a knack for reading people. This talent had gotten them out of all kinds of trouble growing up.

The boys were very athletic. They enjoyed playing outside from morning until evening. Running, jumping, climbing, nothing was off limits to them. They soon became legends among their friends. Where Mario was the stronger of the two, his brother was the quicker. Where one was known for his iron fist, the other was recognized for his ability to outrun and jump everyone else.

As they grew older, the boys began to pick up the slack that their father left behind. They did it without complaint. They did it unconditionally, because despite his faults he was directly responsible for their very existence. Even though he only ever grunted in response to their stories, they still loved the man whose passion was quickly becoming their own.

Much like the man before them, they began taking odd jobs here and there. If they weren’t fixing pipes that Rocco hadn’t properly set, they worked as a two man moving crew. They prided themselves in the jobs they did, though ‘moving’ was only a vague reference for what they actually did. While they sometimes helped the many other immigrants that have come and gone over the years, they were often called upon to help move things around by elderly neighbors who couldn’t do so for themselves.

Everyone thought kindly of two young brothers and often paid them more than for what they were asking and being the thrifty boys that they were, they used that extra money to buy clothes, food for the apartment and the various tools and parts that were needed for their father’s business. They knew where their father kept his earnings and when the landlord came each month, they took out just enough to cover the rent and the utilities.

It wasn’t an easy childhood for the Morelli brothers. Their days were more filled with work as they grew older. While their friends enjoyed going to school and playing out in the streets until the darkest hours of night, they quickly became masters of their trade. By the time their peers were graduating, they had taken all of their father’s clients. With their meager savings, they had purchased a used utility van to store their tools and spare parts for easy access. It wasn’t much, but it made things so much easier than hauling their equipment in the basket on their shared bike.