"I get knocked down, but I get up again"

If it was going to be anywhere that I ran into my brother, it would be here.

I thought this as I stood on King St in the city, waiting to meet my friend Samantha for dinner. King St is one of the most fancy streets in Perth and is home to high-end stores like Gucci, Prada and Tiffany’s.

My brother is quite happy to assume I’m dead. He blocked me from all forms of communication 4 years ago and I suspect if asked if he has a sibling, he’d say no.

I haven’t seen him, but if we were to cross paths, this would be it. On a street in the city where only the rich go. I only happened to be here to meet a friend and we’d walk to Northbridge for an affordable meal. This is not somewhere I would usually frequent.

I looked down at the perfectly laid cobblestones on the pavement and took in the beautiful Brownstone buildings, lined up like extravagant matchboxes. This street looked expensive. Elusive. Unattainable. The streetlights had gorgeous covers and glowed a welcoming soft yellow. They were all evenly spaced every few meters with Magnolia trees lining the pavement.

I happened to be waiting outside an “open home” viewing and when I looked up at the apartment block, it screamed richness and lavishness back at me. Or whispered? Rich people probably have no reason to scream, they just gesture vaguely and someone will come running, I imagine.

The lobby to the apartments was so polished, cultured and fancy that I felt I was a dirty watermark on the place just by standing there.

“This is somewhere Jay would live” I thought sadly. This is where he’d feel most at home. I could see him in my mind’s eye, stepping out of his Porche and walking confidently into the lobby, twirling his keys in his hand and getting into a lift. Up, up, up he’d go and he wouldn’t notice me on the sidewalk even if he had really been there, his mind would be on other things.