Height of My Heart Doesn't Count - ebook

... TO MY LITTLE _ME_

If I could go back to childhood, I would tell my little ME, _don’t worry so much_. Don’t worry about your parents arguing, don’t worry about your age-mates teasing you; I would even be so selfish to tell her, _don’t worry about your grades, go play more_. I would tell her, _go play because you will never be so free_.

If I could go back to the days of my first crashes and the first tears shed for the same old silent suffering, I would affirm to that other, "a little older ME", that time truly heals a broken heart, but that she’s got a soul that cannot be broken. I would tell her to hide her diary from the nosy mom to a safer place. I would tell her _I AM SORRY_ _for not being able to come earlier, but you have made me who I am today_. Even if you are sometimes clumsy, naive and romantic, you still live in me, you silly little girl.

If I could go back just a few days ago, I would tell her, _don’t regret the way it all turned out_. Go celebrate, because so many years of experiences, good ones, bad ones, bitter ones and those seemingly insurmountable ones have sculptured that perfect shape of you, a gentle creature.

_I AM SORRY that you had taken the long road, but it was worth it_. Now, while writing this, I realize that I would tell everybody the same thing:

_I LOVE YOU because I am what I am_. The essence of man is no other than to become human, his purpose is to develop its inner flower, to bear a couple of fruits of love to the Earth and to turn towards the Sun. If we were to ask it, the sunflower could give us some instructions, too.

Thank you, I love you and please forgive me; the words remind me that I can’t wait to meet my new ME who is yet to come and they remind me to live the life.Jack Flyemotion IV was sitting in the spacious living room of his cottage, pouring a whiskey of his own age in two crystal glasses that he had barely reached from the cupboard. He gave one glass to an elderly man, bold from the day he was born, with white eyebrows and white moustaches which he had just dipped in the tasty drink. The shrink took the first gulp with rash delight, as the burning sensation on his pallet, tongue and throat became more and more intense. The sour look on his face meant only one thing: it was a damn good whiskey.

That was one of those silent moments that seemed to last for an hour. Jack checked the golden Rolex dangling over his wrist. The private session was about to end.

"Phil, I don’t think I will ever find her."

His belly bellowed, screaming with sudden wash of alcohol that had no starter to absorb it.

"Charlie."

"Yes, that’s what I’ve said, Charlie."

"No, I’m pretty sure you’ve said Phil."

"What kind of a shrink is Charlie? You should’ve been Phil."

Jack lifted the glass and drained it to the bottom.

"Fucking Oprah, a shrink with a wrong name_,_" Jack thought and choked on it.

"The truth is, Jack, that your chances to find the right woman for yourself are pretty slim, closer to none. And there’s not just the issue of your halfling look, but also of your entire career. _Are you quite sure that dwarf girls do not attract you, at least a bit?_"

Phil raised his yellowish-white moustache waiting for the answer he had already heard so many times in the past couple of years while he was working for him.

Jack frowned. "Why does he have to be honest, he is paid to comfort me," he thought and put his arm deep into the pocket of a suit tailored to fit his size. He was looking for the mints, he couldn’t have his breath smell on the seminar. A seminar ‘Healthy life, healthy you, healthy we, healthy all’ should start in and hour or so, and the speaker would be his long time Feng shui master Kappor, from India. The short lecture was to take place at the library of the old and cold city hall.

In one single move, Phil sketched a lettuce leaf on his notepad.

"What do you see here Jack?"

He turned the notepad to Jack showing him a perfectly shaded round blot.

"Hmm." He stopped to think for couple of seconds.

"I see a puddle."

"Mhm. Ok. And what color is the puddle?"

Jack focused on the drawing.

"Orange. Actually, it’s yellow. Yes, a yellow puddle."

"Ok, Jack, according to the latest psycho test of the ministry of health, you were a puddle in the past life. Congratulations."

Jack was wondering if all shrinks were so irritatingly apathetic when the door bell rang.

"Ok, Jack", Charlie got up as if he’d been waiting for the door bell all the time. _Irritatingly apathetically impatient_, he made a mental note adding one more identifier to the list.

Zack and Matt were making faces to the top camera installed on the copper gate outside. Matt was pressing all the buttons he could put his fingers on, making the cottage echo with ringing.

"Jack, I believe somebody is waiting for you", Phil said covering his ears with hands.

Although he was thinking of taking another quick shot of the precious liquid, the ringing urged him to go.

"Ok, I’m coming, I’m coming," Jack shouted in the receiver of a digital intercom on the south part of the wall, while watching his brother stick his tongue out behind Matt’s shoulder.

"And remember, Jack, we can never get the answers to all the questions. You should follow your heart."

The little man in the black suit was saying good bye to Phil thinking of his words. They two came down a long, spiral staircase leading all the way to the basement together.

"Until the next session, Jack."

He waived his hand and headed towards his white Ford.

"Bye, Phil."

Zack jumped on his little brother as soon as he opened the door to the high gate.

"Come on, we’ll be late for the seminar." He pulled him gently for the sleeve.

Actually, neither Zack nor Matt wanted to go to the seminar. They were doing it for lonesome Jack who had decided to find the answer to the question ‘where does God live?’

"I’ve got a question of the kind."

Sensing two pairs of eyes watching him, Matt became thoughtful.

"For example, why do they pack pizzas in rectangular boxes? It makes no sense."

He waved one hand while rumbling through the pockets of his olive green jacket with the other hand searching for the car keys.

"Life makes no sense." Zack added the last comment to break the brief silence.

The three men were silent all the way to the city hall. Matt’s wish to have a meteor fall on the hall, or a car defect, or an urgent call from Sheila, which would make Jack cancel the spiritual meeting at the last minute, did not come true. "This is going to be a long day," Zack thought.

"This is going to change our lives, guys!" Jack added enthusiastically and boldly entered the hall first, where some of the attendees recognized him from previous seminars. Making his way through the crowd, Matt accidentally hit his pinky toe on the leg of a rough oak table. It was only after his third swore that he realized that everyone was staring at him.

"Change our lives, my ass," he whispered to Zack who had just found some empty seats in the second raw of disarranged chairs.

"Watch your tongue, Matt, these are spiritual people."

"The two of you!" Jack hissed through his teeth. "Matt, lift me up," he said and raised his arms to a tall confused Gipsy. Matt lifted him and put him in a hard and uncomfortable chair quite unlike the ones he was used to.

"Shit!" Matt swore again, which made Jack’s and most of other quietly sitting people’s hairs stand on end.

"Erm, pardon my Spanish."

"French," Jack quickly corrected him.

Finally, the attendees with ‘one immediate conversion to go’ look on their faces started snapping their fingers disapprovingly. Jack was not sure it was a good idea to bring his brother and a guy he had hardly known to such a holly place. Kappor’s appearance on the stage was welcomed with a long applause, and many could already feel a wonderful energy spreading like a magnet through the place, while Matt felt his stomach crawl digesting the stake from the lunch. If only they had known the way their lives would have changed they might have never come to the cold, old hall for a new age lecture, or they might have wished that they had attended it much earlier than that.

"A question that’s been on your mind shall soon be answered." Kappor said that in his deep voice, starting his session.

"Where is God?" He shouted.

Matt had only one question on his mind: "Where’s the toilet?"

* * *

As usual after a lecture, Jack was absorbed by the newly gained knowledge so selflessly revealed by Kappor, unlike his brother and Matt who felt like they had just escaped a prison camp.

And when they finally got into the car, eager to come home and to get into a hot tub, Jack ruthlessly pulled them away.

"Remember what Kappor said?"

They were staring at him blankly.

"Well... He said a lot of things..." Matt was scratching his head.

"Laws of the Universe. What are the laws of the Universe?"

The guys kept staring at him.

"No quitting!"

"No quitting!" They shot it back as if it’d been on the tip of their tongues. Unfortunately, they realized what Jack had in mind too late.

"Bro, whatever you planned, reschedule it for the next month, or better so, for next year."

"No, Zack, that’s what the dark side would want us to do. To lose the spirit."

"Erm, okay." They were still at a loss.

"Healthy life would mean a fresh start."

"Gym." It was Matt who guessed it.

"A dwarf in a gym, sounds like a joke." Matt had no problem with speaking his mind, but that was the first thought that came to him, and he really loved it.

Jack was thinking of getting started with macrobiotics, but Matt was right. A sound mind in a sound body. And he had never before been in a gym, which is definitely an interesting fresh start.

"That’s it. A gym. So, what are we waiting for?"

He clapped his hands and leaned on the back seat of Zack’s Prius.

* * *

A monstrous room with creepy, ghastly cold-metal devices was first seen by Zack, who stood there with a look of an astronaut who had just landed on the Moon. "Wooow, as if I got into a huge piranha’s stomach who had once swallowed the Titanic," he thought.

Right after him there was Jack, sneaking in his red Nike sweat suit custom tailored for him and his white Jordan’s. Matt pushed him in eagerly, charmed by the smell of phyto-estrogens.

"That’s what I call sex for the soul," he said head-banging in the rhythm of deep base sound of the Animals thudding from the high loudspeakers, a bit too high for Jack’s taste. Red All Stars jiggled behind a loud Garix; Matt was galloping into his dream land.

Jack was in shock, staring at the nefils and the weights they were lifting; they were as heavy as... as a whale would be if he would dare lifting it. He shouted that observation trying to hear his own thoughts. "Or a giant piranha," Zack hooked on it.

"Jack, don’t go far from me. We are currently on an enemy’s territory."

"I can see that... What a horror. I’d feel better in "Saw" V." He drew closer to his brother.

"It’s gonna be ok, bro. I’m looking after you."

After a long time the two brothers were keeping each other’s back on a battlefield. Last time it happened in a sand pond behind the house, when Jack was five years old. Of course, he always had to be a "little soldier" and his brother a great gunner, but he had no problem with that. It was fun.

The childhood memory flashed through his swarming mind. He hugged his brother even tighter.

"Boys, are you selling insurance or are you going to join us?"

They heard a sweet voice coming from behind and then saw even sweeter bodies with two pairs of most beautiful legs that had ever walked on earth.

"Reincarnation of the first woman, ah." Matt was checking out a fitness coach, a blond with gorgeous...

He gazed at her deep décolletage,

"Eyes. You’ve got most beautiful eyes... Eve."

Zack turned to her and then flinched hiding behind Jack.

"Oh my God!" He saw a Xena warrior woman with far too many bleached locks of hair for his taste. "Hi, I’m Zach," he held out his hand so hastily that she winced for a second.

"Hi, Zack, I’m Charlotte, your personal coach, if I’m not mistaken." Instead of the held out hand, she looked up at her pink notebook.

"Zack and Jack Flyemotion?"

"Present!" Brothers exclaimed simultaneously and held up their right hands like schoolboys.

"And you must be Matt," she tapped his fingers with her pen, and his heart quickened.

"Yes, yes, I am. Hihihi."

He giggled as if he had just found a winning lottery ticket at his door step. "Heaven on earth, my ass. Heaven on earth would never approve of this female perversion who has just touched me," he thought. "Please be gentle while giving me a massage." He sighed.

"Sorry, honey," she winked. "I like it rough."

She waived her backside peaches and flew away. Her crispy perfume was the final blow. She smelled of biscuits that his grandmother once used to bake for him. Freud was right.

Jack ran after her with his golden Rolex dangling on the pocket watch pendant.

"After them!" Matt started quickly, grabbing Zack for his silk off-white retro shirt.

"Ok, guys. This is going to be our second home. Look around."

"This gym equipment may look a bit like medieval torture instruments from the times of inquisition," Jack thought frustrated by the huge devices. He would have to check if they have them in his size in China. He noted on his I-phone: "Remind Sheila of the torture instruments." Three alarms.

"No, no, no, my little sexy pupil," said an Aphrodite who appeared before him and skillfully took his cell phone out of his hand. He would have fired someone for doing something like that.

"Taking one’s property is illegal!" He wanted to protest, but instead swallowed a cactus. Or at least he felt like it.

"Shhhh..." she put her finger on his lips. "I am making rules here."

When she bent down he could have sworn that some planets were smaller than her breasts. Science, my ass.

She lifted her hand high pointing to the fitness room. She was faced with three lined up boys whom she was supposed to transform into men.A Gypsy, the smallest of the Dalton brothers, and a pharaoh. Zack’s golden sweat suit glittered under strong neon lights.

"I love you, Jesus," she murmured in ironic Texan accent, and then informed them that she was their coach, that she always carried a tear-gas in her pocket, and that each and every room was equipped with a camera. Not one of the three attendees of the Healthy life seminar noticed that she had no pockets on her tight pink pants.

"Aaand, let’s start."

She turned the remote controller towards the stereo, and the room filled with horrid, well known sound. Guetta.

They stepped after Charlotte, hypnotized, as if marching in the rhythm of "Work hard – play hard."

Though Matt was still having a hangover from a party he was at the night before, he wouldn’t get distracted. Two ball halves were jumping in front of him, and he wasn’t sitting in front of a TV. A moment for a slow motion high zoomed photo memory. He was moving his legs after her, left and right.

"A 45 minute work hard remix. This is what I’ve feared most," Zack murmured, lowered his Ray Ban sun glasses on the eyes and lifted his legs sluggishly. "I might write a poem on this agony," he thought.

After 45 minutes filled with motions of her breasts pressing on her knees and tricky abs workout that made Jack look like he was doing a break dance act, rotating on the floor off balance, the boys lay lifeless on the floor.

"Ok boys, 5 minute break, the dressing room and the showers are over there should anyone need them," she said pointing her pink nail to a door, and then left the room.

Everyone was still looking at her breasts. Aaaand, off she goes. Few moments of silence and then the three tortured schoolboys burst into an uncontrollable laughter.

"I can’t take my eyes off them, man, this is a dream," Matt explained laughing out loud.

"Take your eyes off what?" Zack was perplexed. "I thought we were laughing at Guetta."

His brother turned to him puzzled. "Why on earth would we laugh at Guetta?"

"You know, because of the squeaking sound. And what were you looking at?"

"At Charlotte’s ear lobe," Matt said acting being mad, while Jack took out his Ray Ban glasses and put them on. "This is the best seminar ever."

"C’mon boys, the lady must not wait for us, she said 5 minutes."

They were slowly getting up when they heard Charlotte’s voice with upgraded program modification. "Turn around slowly and don’t do anything rash," Zack pulled both of them closer to him, and they all slowly turned around.

In front of them, there stood the last primitive man himself, wearing pink pants.

"You... You must be Adam, the first man."

Matt forgot about the hangover. Jack’s neck hurt from tilting his head back to look at him. Zack was delighted.

"I am your other coach, James. Friends call me Hulk."

"Hi, Hulk," Jack squeaked.

The tall man with extremely dark hair on his broad chest bent down to Jack’s nape of the head. He could have sworn the guy touched him with his hair.

"I want my planets!" He cried to himself, tucked his thumb into his mouth and turned into a blond, bearded baby.

"We are not friends. Is that clear?" James showed his pointed white teeth, and Jack swallowed two cactuses.

"Ok," Hulk clapped his hands and pressed ON on the remote controller, so tiny now in his hand.

"Are you fucking with me? Guetta again?" Zack rolled his eyes. He did not mind it so much now, though, as he was fascinated with James’s firm muscles showing up through the pants. The world made sense again.

"Aaand one and two, and left and right, repeat after me..."

Zack was skipping merrily at the nanapana sound, following Hulk’s theatrical moves.

"Butt out, butt in..."

Jack started sweating. One drop of sweat skid from his forehead to the black rim of the glasses. The beast looked as if it was just about to attack him. There might be some missing people in his thick beard, who could tell. He was hardly breathing.

Doing a workout move, Matt swayed down to Jack.

"Hay, look at Zack."

They both noticed Zack’s mesmerized look fixed at his muscular coach.

"Play hard, get it, work hard, hihi," he gestured penetration of a male sex organ into the mouth.

"Yuck, Matt, you are grouse." Jack whispered back and Matt swayed back to his spot.

The last session finished. They were lying on the floor again, tired and panting. This time only Zack grinned smugly.

Jack the dwarf had to finally accept the fact which his father had been pointing out to him all those years: "Zack is a homo sapiens. No, Zack is a homo. I’m going to have a serious talk with him tonight, as an older brother to a younger brother," Jack decided silently. "I need to hear the truth from his own mouth, no matter how hard it hits his sensitive ears and even more sensitive stomach."

Teaching of Kappor and other spiritual gurus made him conscious. He understood that they all were One and that other people’s choices and differences had to be respected. Even if it meant that his brother was gay.

"Matt, I think Jack wants to have a talk with me tonight, like brother to brother."

"Uh, man, that’s awful."

"I know! That’s why I need your advice." Zack sipped Coke through a long straw pinned in a red cup made of a dreadful paper material.

Matt and Zack were hiding from Jack in the McDonalds. He mustn’t know that the two of them were not exactly following the universal laws on healthy life they had been taught on at the seminar.

"What should I do? Everybody has tried to tell him that I am gay. He doesn’t even like the word in his large vocabulary. It’s too... pervert for him, can you believe that?" He accentuated it by waving his skinny fingers.

"Well, Zack," Matt had just bitten a delicious cheeseburger. "Perhaps you’d better tell him that yourself," he said and licked the fingers on his left hand.

"I’ve told him, Matt, I’ve told him!" He anxiously ran his hands through the haircut branded by St. Justin Bieber. "Last time I tried to tell him that he pretended to be sleeping. Can you believe that!"

"Well, it’s easy, find another way to say it."

"What can be easier than telling it?" He nipped a tip of a french fry.

"Hm. There has to be a way." Matt put on a thoughtful look which he had perfected to the minutest detail.

Zack was all ears with a green silken scarf.

"I know!" Matt put up his index finger, just like Professor Baltasar, a cartoon character did, which made Zack jump back and grab his chest.

"What, Matt, what?"

"You do not tell him that fearfully. You know, cautiously. You should take a stand."

Zack instinctively clenched his fists.

"You must be superior and sharp."

"Uh, you’ve made my skin crawl!" Zack nipped the French fry again. "Do I have any crumbs left around my mouth, here?" He drew a circle in the air pointing to his face covered with powder and glitter makeup on the corners of the eyes.

"No, Zack, you’ve got to listen carefully. You mustn’t be afraid!" He slammed the edge of the tray so that the French fries flew over to the table.

"Oh, Matt, this is so exciting!" Zack clapped a few times and made an elderly couple from the next table turn to them.

"Shhhh. Here is the plan. You shall need a big loudspeaker, like the one you have in your film studio."

"Mhm, okay. Anything else?"

"Yes, the most important thing. You shall need your big balls."

"I think they have just got smaller," Zack whispered, but Matt was not averted. "I’m afraid of him, Matt. Imagine what it is like to have a sleepwalking dwarf brother. How would you react if a dwarf would wake you up in the middle of the night? Only recently have I stopped wetting my bed because of it."

"Forget about the fear! He slammed the table again."

"How? How? How? How?" Zack kept saying it like a broken record.

"Pull yourself together, Zack!"

"Uh, I was hoping you would slap me, like in the movies. Ok, right, I’ve got it. Loudspeaker and balls. It’s all recorded here." He tapped his index finger on his head.

"So, you’ve got it, ha?"

"Yes."

"Now we’ll see." Matt smiled complacently.

"Oh, no, Matt, what do you have in mind? If you startle me, you’d better watch out, because I could hurt you. I’ve practiced kung-fu at school. I’ve got a silver belt."

"Zack, I’m not sure there is a belt like that. And you haven’t heard me well. You will have to convince me that you are not afraid."

"Ok. I accept. Truth or dare. Now dare me, please."

"Zack! Get a grip on yourself. If you are not afraid of other people’s opinion, than you are brave enough to do anything."

"Sir, who do you take me for? I am Zack Flyemotion V. A cat does not worry what mice think of it." He flung his green silken scarf over the right shoulder.

"Excellent. Then this is what we do." Matt eagerly approached the project.

"I see you like French fries."

"Oh, yes, they are juicy. You want some?"

"No, Zack. You have only a couple of them left..."

Matt fixed his eyes on the tray.

Two. Two French fries.

"You’ll go to the girl at the counter and ask her to put these two French fries in a doggy bag. You’ll tell her that you are taking them for your dog."

"What?!? Matt, I usually trust you, you are a wonderful friend, but couple of French fries won’t make me have such an unpleasant conversation! Anyway, only the poor take the leftovers from a restaurant home." He crossed his arms in protest.

"Zack. I take every last piece of pizza home, if I have to."

Zack looked at him startled. "But... But a piece of pizza is not the same as two French fries. What kind of a dog would have them as good snacks? A Chihuahua, maybe?"

"Don’t you get it? You will be different from all the other guests today. Different. As in homo different. I thought that cat.... But if you will not do it..."

"I will, I haven’t said I won’t. But you have to go with me."

"Don’t worry, I’m right next to you." Matt let out a grunt of suppressed loud laughter. He turned the camera on. "This is going on You Tube," he chuckled to himself.

Two young men started towards the cashier where they were welcomed by a smile of a fat Asian woman worm as an iceberg.

"Yes, please?"

Around half past two p. m. a man with a green silken scarf ran out of a McDonald’s restaurant. Screaming.

* * *

Jack was pacing up and down a dark office. Tonight he will know the truth. Zack – a homo or not a homo, that is the question.

The clock was ticking impertinently; the white hands were rushing towards nine as if daring him.

It was time. He looked back at the office from the door and went to the corridor.

"Look back, Jack, the world will never be the same again." He pitied himself.

It took the elevator ages to touch the ground floor. On the way out of the building, there was a young probationer who jumped from his chair as if someone poked him in the butt with a needle.

"Boss, shall I call the limo driver?"

"No, thank you. I’ll take my own car."

"Pope smart", as the employees liked to call it, was a custom made car with a low positioned massaging white leather seats, bullet proof glass and double belt with a parachute built in the seat. One can never be too cautious. The car was just like the one driven by the pope, except that Jack’s was red.

The red pope-smart was riding along well known streets. "Chihuahua is coming home," Zack thought when he heard the familiar sound of engine in the yard.

He started counting: "3 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 1 Mississippi and..." Jack knocked on the door.

"I can do it, I can’t do it, I can... Pull yourself together," Zack, he slapped himself gently. His throat was dry, his legs turned to jelly and his hair stood on the end at the very thought of a stern dwarf and of what was about to happen. He couldn’t move.

No one answered the door.

He knocked again, only louder. Zack did not like door bells, and once he ripped that one off the wall. The hole was now covered with a medium size picture of a Zombie from his low budget movie that had never been made. The Zombie had a flower on his head. A detail that caught Jack’s attention for the first time now. "Come in, it’s open," he heard his brother’s voice from the other side.

"C’mon Jack, you can do it." He pulled a thread out of the edge of the retro checkered jacket and entered.

In one brief moment his hair stood on the end and he frantically threw away a box with a cake he had bought for Zack on the way there, as Zack was screaming his head off through a loudspeaker. The house was reverberated with:

"I AM GAY! I AM GAY!"

Jack has quickly turned to the exit and banged his head on the closed door.

"I AM GAY!"

He curled up under a golden knob, closed his eyes and pressed his hands on the ears. The roaring sound was getting closer and closer, but he wasn’t going to open his eyes.

Then it stopped. He peaked through a corner of his left eye. Standing in front of him, in a purple robe and holding a loudspeaker in one hand and a piece of cake in the other, there was Zack, whispering gently:

"I am gay, Jack."

He affectionately came down to his little brother who was breathing hard on the floor, frightened like a little animal. Although the method was brutal, Zack felt superior for the first time in his life. Jack was cornered. "Oh, Matt, you fucking genius," the thought flashed through his mind. Zack leaned on the door next to his brother.

"So? What do you have to say?"

Jack summoned all his strength, as if emerging at the surface with the last breath in his lungs.

"Are you nuts? Have you lost control? For God’s sake, Zack, I’ve almost lost my hearing. My heart... My heart stopped. Have you lost your mind completely?"

"No, Jack. I’m sorry, but that was the only way to make it clear to you about who I was."

"Well, I believe you’ve made it clear to the whole block. You could’ve just told me, nicely!"

"I’ve tried, Jack, hundreds of times, don’t play dumb with me. Remember the day when I told you that I was gay, and you yelled back from the front seat, yes, everything is okay? I know you’d heard me, Jack."

He waved his skinny finger in front of Jack’s face so that Jack wanted to bite it off.

"Or when I told you that I liked men, and you said I love Bens, too."

"Oh, you are right, Zack, but... How did that happen?"

"How did what happen, Jack?"

"Two brothers ending the Flyemotion family line."

"You are a homo..."

"Gay."

"Okay."

"Gay, Jack. Say it."

"Uh. You are what you are, and I am what I am. The last two living sperms, get it?"

"Oh, my God, Jack, I have never thought of it that way."

"I have, many times. Sometimes nights are so long that loneliness becomes a habit."

"But Jack, don’t be so pathetic. You can have children... unless you are... oh God... An impotent halfling sperm?" Zack giggled.

"No, Zack, I don’t think it’s the problem. Just look at me. Who would want a family with me?"

"Oh, no, here you go again with that sad story of yours.

Jack, dwarves get married every day, it’s no big deal.

Why don’t you let yourself find someone who would love you for who you really are. Smart, kind, a leader."

Jack lifted his head, nodding affirming.

"I know all of that, Zack, but..."

"But what? I will help you find the love of your life."

"Really? How are you going to do it? I can’t just approach a girl and ask her for a drink. That’s so coarse."

"I agree, brother. That’s what the internet is for."

"Ah, no, no... Out of question. Last time I had a blind date I spent all evening explaining that dwarves were not alien hybrids."

"Really?"

"Yes! On top of that, she was a conspiracy theorist. She told me I was illuminati."

"Oh, for God’s sake, such are the worst. Look. This is not a blind date. Internet knows everything. Even the size of the bra. Women like putting such things on their profiles.

First you write to each other, find out what you have in common, chat. And when love blossoms between the two hearts the looks become irrelevant."

Zack continued in the smart tone as if he remembered something.

"Give it a try, I’ll make you a profile on a page where I met Fred, my ex boyfriend, and the rest is up to you."

"Zack, I don’t think it’s a good idea."

The very thought of his brother’s boyfriend made his blood freeze. He came to put Zack’s love life in order, and what was going on was exactly opposite – his gay brother was giving him advice on love.

"I don’t trust the Internet, anyone can give a false identity."

Zack stood up from the floor and left the loudspeaker aside. He poured Coca Cola to the top of two colorful glasses. Jack stood up after him and moved to a much more comfortable chair.

"Take this, refresh yourself. You look like you’ve seen a gay brother holding a loudspeaker in his hand."

Zack made a joke at his own account. Judging by his brother’s pressed lips it was still much too early to joke about that.

"Jack, is it me, or some food and drinks tasted quite differently in our childhood? As if everything is deteriorating in quality. Or maybe the life seemed simpler then, so the taste of everything was different."

Jack gave this issue a thought. "I believe you are right." Bubbles from the coke were biting his throat. He poured the next glass himself.

"You know, Jack, recently I had an opportunity to drink Coca Cola that was ten years old, maybe older. It wasn’t only the taste that was different, but also the color."

After a long pause Jack murmured: "Perhaps it was past expiry date?"

A long pause again. They looked at each other silently.

All of a sudden Zack started flailing his hands.

"I knew it! You always have to be the smart one. Jack the fourth, Big Jack, know-it-all Jack – whining about a few inches."

"Please, Zack, we are not going to fight again, are we?"

"No, no, you listen to me now. I am the one who’s been practically forgotten by the family. I live in the guest house of the parents who sometimes forget to check if I am dead or alive."

"Zack, you are overreacting now."

"Overreacting? I’ve been sharing the house with Spanish refugees, and my mom thinks that they work for us."

"Wait, wait, wait just a minute. Are you saying that Juanita is not your housekeeper?"

They both sighed at the same time.

"We are creating your profile on the web page www.luckyladysnight.com. End of discussion."

"There is no chance, Zack."

"There is. I am not going to listen to you whine and complain any more."

"Baby, baby, baby, please," he whistled the song while pouring the third glass.

"Fucking Bieber," Jack objected while inside he was secretly celebrating. Although he would not admit it, that was a chance that, by any chance, there was a chance.

"I hate Bieber."

Before he could say another word, he found himself licking a piece of cake that Zack had just unexpectedly thrown at him.

"Now we are even."

"Even." Jack repeated while wiping vanilla cream off his eyes.

"Even." Zack’s had to be the last word. For the first time he felt free when near his little relentless brother.

"Even." Jack repeated. To himself.