Sleeping With My Brother

"Luke hauled a king-size mattress through an inter-dimensional portal, and somehow that was more surreal than being trapped here in the first place."

The return to the tent felt surprisingly swift, the landscape having played some trick on my perception during the outward journey. What had seemed like considerable distance—the kind of walk that gives a man time to think, to process, to bury things both literal and figurative—collapsed into a handful of minutes on the way back. The familiar silhouette of our makeshift home materialised against the dust-coloured horizon far sooner than I'd anticipated.

I haven't wandered so far after all.

The realisation brought a strange mixture of relief and disorientation. In this featureless expanse, where every direction looked essentially the same, distance became slippery—a concept that bent and stretched according to rules I didn't understand. I'd been so certain I'd covered significant ground, and yet here I was, back where I'd started, as if the landscape itself had conspired to keep me tethered.

Jamie's voice cut through my contemplation before I'd fully processed my arrival.

"Where's the shovel?"

His gaze swept over me, clearly expecting to see the tool in my hands. The practical concern in his tone was so immediate, so grounded in mundane logistics, that it almost made me laugh. Here we were, stranded in an alien dimension with no clear path home, and Jamie's first question upon my return was about garden equipment.

"Oh."

I'd genuinely forgotten that the shovel's absence would require explanation. In my mind, the burial and its marker had become a closed chapter—dealt with, resolved, no longer requiring attention. But of course Jamie didn't know any of that.

"I've left it in the ground to mark our toilet spot. We can use that as our guide. We may as well do our business in a single location."

The explanation felt reasonable as it left my lips—practical, even sensible. A designated area for such necessities seemed like exactly the kind of organisation we needed if we were going to survive here with any semblance of dignity.

Jamie's face contorted through several expressions in rapid succession—surprise, disgust, reluctant acceptance—before settling on something that might generously be called resignation.

"I guess."

The words carried the weight of someone accepting an unpalatable reality because the alternatives were worse. Then his expression shifted again, something approaching enthusiasm flickering across his features.

"Maybe we should build a long drop."

"A long drop?"

The term sparked a vague memory—something from a camping manual I'd flipped through years ago, or perhaps a conversation overheard at a barbecue. The basic concept lurked at the edges of my consciousness without quite coming into focus.

"Yeah."

Jamie's voice carried a hint of energy now, the kind that comes with having a plan, however half-formed. But the enthusiasm flickered and died almost immediately, replaced by something more familiar.

"Although I'm not really sure how we do that."

The admission hung in the air, dry and honest. He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice had dropped to something quieter, heavier with the weight of what he was about to say.

"We're going to die here."

I found myself rubbing my forehead. Jamie's blunt assessment wasn't pessimism—it was simply observation. An honest acknowledgment of facts we'd both been dancing around since the portal had rejected us.

I hadn't been camping since I was a child. The skills required to survive in an environment as unforgiving as this—real survival skills, the kind that kept people alive when civilisation wasn't there to catch them—seemed as remote to me as the Earth we'd left behind. I could run a business. I could play piano pieces that made people weep. I could navigate the complex emotional terrain of a difficult marriage and demanding children.

But could I build a shelter from scratch? Find food in a landscape that seemed to produce nothing? Keep myself and another person alive when every familiar support system had been stripped away?

What hope do we have of surviving here?

The question loomed large in my mind, threatening to swallow the small flames of optimism I'd been trying to nurture. It would have been easy to surrender to that darkness, to let Jamie's words become a prophecy rather than a fear.

But surrendering to despair wasn't an option. Not yet. Not while there was still breath in my lungs and the memory of my children's faces burned bright in my heart.

"We just need—"

I began, my thoughts scrambling for purchase, searching for any plan, any course of action that might improve our odds. The sentence hung unfinished, interrupted by the sound of Luke's voice carrying across the distance.

Whatever my brother was saying, the urgency in his tone was enough to shatter the bleak spiral of our conversation. Both Jamie and I turned toward the portal, drawn by the sound like moths to flame.

"The mattress!"

Jamie's exclamation carried a note of excitement I hadn't heard from him all day. Before I could fully process what was happening, he'd broken into a jog, heading toward the portal with purpose in every stride. His sudden movement—the way hope could transform even hostile Jamie into someone capable of enthusiasm—was a stark reminder of how we were all balanced on the edge of something, constantly tipping between despair and its opposite.

Curiosity propelled me after him, eager to discover what must have unfolded between them during my absence. My steps quickened as I approached the portal, and then I saw it.

Luke was hauling a king-size mattress through the shimmering colours of the dimensional gateway.

The sight was so incongruous, so wildly out of place in this barren landscape, that my face instinctively contorted into an expression of pure astonishment. The mattress—white and quilted and aggressively domestic looked like something from a furniture advertisement that had wandered into a fever dream, a bulky invader from another realm making its grand entrance into ours.

My brother's face was red with exertion, his arms straining against the awkward weight of his cargo. Despite everything—the anger, the betrayal, the impossible situation he'd created—I felt something in my chest loosen at the sight. Luke, bringing us a mattress. Luke, still trying to make this bearable.

Without exchanging a word, Jamie and I moved to help. Some instincts transcend circumstance, and the sight of someone struggling with a heavy load triggered responses too deeply ingrained to ignore. We approached from either side, hands finding purchase on the mattress's edges, and together we lifted.

The weight distributed between three bodies became manageable—almost easy. What would have been an impossible burden for Luke alone transformed into something we could handle collectively. We carried the mattress toward the tent in a procession that would have looked absurd to any observer: three men hauling bedroom furniture across a desert wasteland, their faces set with the determination usually reserved for far nobler endeavours.

There was something almost ceremonial about it. Something that made me want to laugh despite everything.

We'd barely positioned the mattress inside the tent—filling most of the central space, transforming the canvas structure into something approaching a bedroom—when Luke was off again. He returned moments later, arms laden with sheets and blankets that caught the breeze as he walked, the fabrics fluttering like flags of domesticity planted in hostile territory.

The three of us worked together to make the bed, our hands moving in patterns as old as civilisation itself. Spreading sheets. Tucking corners. Smoothing wrinkles from fabric that still smelled faintly of laundry detergent, of Earth, of the life we'd left behind. Each gesture felt weighted with significance beyond its practical purpose.

We were making a home. Here, in the middle of nowhere, in a world that had rejected our departure, we were staking a claim. Declaring with clean sheets and plumped pillows that this small piece of the unknown was ours, if only for the night.

The intimacy of the moment struck me unexpectedly. Here we were, three individuals who barely tolerated each other under normal circumstances, working in concert to create comfort from nothing. Every tug and fold of fabric was a small declaration of resilience, a testament to the stubborn human insistence on finding normalcy even when nothing about our situation was normal.

Luke's voice broke the comfortable silence that had settled over us.

"Sorry there's only one tent and mattress."

The apology carried genuine regret, and I found myself shrugging before I'd consciously decided to respond.

"I can't believe we haven't even been here for twenty-four hours. It feels like a week already."

The words emerged as a musing, more thought spoken aloud than deliberate communication. Time had become elastic in Clivilius, stretching and compressing in ways that defied the steady tick of clocks I'd spent my life orienting around.

"I know."

Jamie's response carried a lightness I hadn't heard since our arrival—something approaching good humour, as foreign in this place as the mattress we'd just installed.

"At least I might get a decent night's sleep without Duke and Henri."

The joke landed softly, a reference to pets and domestic life that seemed impossibly distant from our current circumstances. But it was a joke. Jamie was making jokes. The significance of that simple fact wasn't lost on me.

Luke's chuckle rippled through the tent—low and self-amused, the sound of a man who knew exactly how ridiculous his next words would be.

"And I forgive you for sleeping with my brother for a night."

The jest hung in the air for a fraction of a second, and then something broke loose inside me. Laughter erupted—genuine, spontaneous, catching me off guard with its intensity. Jamie's own laughter joined mine, the two sounds interweaving in a harmony that felt almost musical.

It was the first time either of us had laughed since entering this strange world. The realisation hit me even as the sound continued to spill from my lips. This place had demanded so much of us—had stripped away comfort and certainty and hope—and yet here we were, laughing at a joke about sharing a bed. The absurdity of it all, the cosmic ridiculousness of our situation, suddenly seemed bearable in a way it hadn't moments before.

"I've ordered a few more tents."

Luke's voice cut through the lingering warmth of our amusement.

"They should arrive tomorrow."

The promise settled over me with unexpected weight. More tents. Privacy. The possibility of having a space that was mine alone, even if that space was just canvas and air in a world I didn't understand.

"I hope they're at least as big as this one."

I heard the words leave my mouth, heard the spark of something like excitement threading through them despite my best efforts at restraint.

"I could get used to having that much space to myself."

"Yes. They're the same size."

Luke's confirmation sent a flutter of relief through my chest. One night. I'd only have to spend one night sharing this tent with Jamie, sharing this mattress with my brother’s partner, whom I barely knew and mostly didn't like. Tomorrow would bring separate accommodations, separate spaces, the dignity of walls between us even if those walls were only fabric.

We'd still be trapped. We'd still be stranded in an alien world with no clear path home. But at least we'd be trapped with a bit of personal space. In the hierarchy of comforts, it ranked lower than food and water but considerably higher than I would have guessed this morning.

"Now."

Jamie's voice pulled me back to the present, practicality reasserting itself in his tone.

"That wood you were going to get?"

I looked at Jamie, confusion creasing my brow.

"Wood?"

The question emerged before I could stop it, betraying exactly how much I'd missed while I was... preoccupied... earlier. Clearly, conversations had occurred in my absence. Plans had been made. And I'd been too busy burying evidence of my own humiliation to participate.

Luke swallowed visibly, his Adam's apple bobbing in a display of the unease that seemed to surface whenever new demands were placed upon him.

"I'll get it right now."

The words were simple, but they carried the weight of everything we were all carrying—the knowledge that survival depended on cooperation, that each of us was a link in a chain that couldn't afford to break. Luke was our connection to Earth, to supplies, to everything we needed to stay alive. Without his willingness to make these trips, to ferry necessities across dimensional barriers, Jamie and I would have nothing but dust and river water and each other's increasingly desperate company.

As Luke set off toward the portal once more, I watched his figure grow smaller against the vast backdrop of Clivilius. The complicated tangle of emotions his presence generated—gratitude and resentment, love and anger, dependence and frustration—had begun to settle into something I could almost manage. Almost live with.

We were all leaning on each other, I realised. All dependent on each other's strengths to navigate this unfamiliar terrain. Luke had the portal and the access to supplies. Jamie had practical knowledge I was only beginning to appreciate. And I had... what? Optimism, perhaps. The stubborn refusal to accept that we were going to die here, even when every rational assessment suggested exactly that.

Maybe that was enough. Maybe, in the calculus of survival, the person who refused to give up hope was as valuable as the one who knew how to build a long drop or the one who could walk between worlds.