Liam Wallace

Half the Western World

 

I'll say this about my Grandfather Charlie - the number of siblings he had changed every time I asked. He seemed to enjoy the confusion, the lingering frustration he caused. You could call him mercurial, a bit of a chancer. 

You could call him a prick and say hiding something as simple and stupid as how many siblings you had meant serious questions would have to be asked. What else are you hiding? 

I’m from an awfully profligate line, little accidents were popping out of the woodwork wherever you looked. A true Bernard could reproduce with the smallest bit of eye contact across the bar. One soft glance and we were at the races. And yet, my mother got the idea in her head to try one of the DNA sites. 

“It's just a bit of fun,” that's what she said.

I told her before she sent on the sample, it's gonna match you with half the Western world. There was at least one brother that she knew of, back on Muck. I held no hope he'd be a unique case. 

She did the test anyway, of course she did. 

“Why not? It'll be interesting,” she said, “it's better to know.”

A few weeks later she sent me a screenshot of the results over WhatsApp, the woman's technological prowess shocked me.

400 matches.

5 matching with 25% shared DNA.

5 new brothers and sisters.

“Only half!” She sent me that message alongside a GIF of Willem Dafoe.

Hard to wrap your head around that, even if you were expecting those sorts of numbers. There's hearsay, a bit of chat as to what could be. But seeing it, pixels on a computer screen, that's it entering reality. 

She took it much better than I did. 

“Ah sure, you know what he was like.”

“Aye, I did know, but now I really know.” 

It gave me the terrors to be honest.

I've the same look to me. Long oblong dome, big brows and green eyes. Black hair scraped back and small little ears leaking out from a beard. I think that's what scares me. That I know, deep down, we're the one soul. I've matching rakish tendencies and I'm certain I've my own little unknown toddling over in Basingstoke or Sowtown. Maybe even in Malaga or a sweet little town in the Swiss Alps. Another one of us to carry on the sad story. He'll be planting them around whatever little town he grows up in. And then they'll ask him how many siblings he has. He won't be able to give a steady answer. 

Liam Wallace is a writer who’s spent most of the last decade in Croatia, he now lives in Devon. His work has been published in Frazzled Lit and the Mini Plays Review.