It’s really cold now. I can’t remember it having been this cold in all the nights I’ve spent up here, sitting on the dirty rooftop of the old apartment building that’s been my home. Then again, my memory isn’t what it used to be. Actually, I don’t think it’s my ability to remember things that’s changed; there just stopped being things worthy of recalling. Every day and night is the same. They blur together. I honestly couldn’t tell you the day or the date, because it doesn’t matter anymore. When I can sleep, I do it during the day, and come up here at night. I used to hate the fact that I couldn’t come and go in the daylight as I pleased, but now I don’t even think about it. I remember Raph telling me about going to the rooftops to think, because Leo couldn’t find him to get on his case, and there was nothing around to distract him from his thoughts. His reasons are better then mine, I think. I couldn’t tell you exactly why I come out here, except that it’s something different. I don’t get lonely here like I do at home, because here it’s my decision to be alone, whereas at home there’s nothing I can do about it. It feels strange calling it home. It’s the place I live, but home still means the sewer. I think it always will.

Today I’m thinking about my family. Our roles had always been so well defined. I’m the funny, sensitive one, Don’s the smart, quirky one, Raph is the angry rebel and Leo is the leader. That’s just the way things are. I never thought about it enough to form on opinion on it. But when Splinter got sick, it all changed. We never knew exactly what it was. Donny did some tests once, but if he got a definite answer, he never shared it. We never asked either. Anyway, my role became much smaller. Comic relief stopped being important, and what else was I there for? We had long since defeated our enemies. There was a dark cloud in our home then, we all walked around in a haze. We stopped going topside at all. Even Raph never left. We all knew Splinter could die at any time, and we didn’t want to be away when it happened. We stopped talking to each other. Leo kept a journal for his thoughts, Raph and Don had never been much for heart to hearts, and I – I had never gone to anyone else with my problems. They always came to me. But in the month before Splinter passed away, I probably spoke a dozen words to each of my brothers. I don’t know if they felt as alienated as I did. I don’t think so.

After Splinter died, nobody really knew what to do with ourselves. In that moment he was gone, the world was suddenly a different place. He was so much a part of our everyday lives that it was impossible to imagine a life without him. It was something I’d never wanted to do. Leo, when trying to console me, had said something like ‘We knew it would happen someday’, and I hadn’t understood. In the back of my head, I knew it would happen, but I never thought about it. Everybody dies eventually, but I didn’t think about it for the same reason you wouldn’t look at a newborn baby and think about what life would be like after it died.

We took him to Japan to bury him. It had been an unspoken understanding between all of us that when he died, that’s where he would be buried. Splinter wasn’t a part of the world outside Japan. He lived his life in the sewers of America, but he didn’t identify with the country, its customs, or its people. When we were all alone, we didn’t even speak English. Splinter taught us to speak Japanese – television taught us to speak English. The burial had been silent. There weren’t words, in any language, that could have been appropriate. There was no eulogy, no nothing. I was the only one who cried, and even then, I did it in silence. It was also the last time since then we were all together. Leo stayed in Japan. We all knew it wasn’t likely we’d see him again. The way he said goodbye was goodbye forever. It was final. We all accepted it. I didn’t begrudge him the personal torment he was putting himself through, and if Japan would bring him peace, then I had no right to make him come home. He sent letters in the beginning, but even that stopped eventually. Once we got back to New York, Raph had spent a few days at home, then had left, saying he needed to ‘get away from this life’, as he put it. He hadn’t made any contact since he left. I have no idea where he is. He never had liked living in the confines of the sewer, and, with Splinter and Leo gone, no one had the authority to keep him there. Don and I tried to scrape things together, but it was obvious to both of us after a while that there was no way life could ever be the same as it had been. Everything was different. Three of the people we loved most in the world were gone, one dead, the other two as good as dead to us. After that became the reality, I had to go. I moved out of the sewer and into an old apartment building where I used to meet my one secret girlfriend. Looking back on that, it seems like another life. I’m not the boy who lost his virginity with the girl he thought he loved in this building. I’m not the man who sat here and cried because, after five years, that girl left him. None of that matters to me now, and it’s hard for me to believe that it mattered to me then. Don and I used to see each other every now and then. He knows where I am, and as far as I know, he’s still living in the sewer. Of all of us, he was the only one who liked it there. It made him feel safe.

So, for the past five years I’ve lived here. I get food where I can. I drink when I can find it. I sleep a lot, and I read a lot. I’m not often lonely; I don’t even think about them that much. Except for these times when I come up on the roof. The city sparkles all around me, and millions of people who don’t know that I exist, who don’t know of our lives, or all the things we’ve done, go about their lives. I watch life go on below me, and I wonder how. I wonder how they can live, how they can just go about things as if nothing ever happened. How is it possible that they aren’t affected by the thing that ripped my family apart, changed who I am, and now forces me to live like I’m barely alive? I know I can never be a part of that world again. I never really was in the first place, but I’m separated beyond repair now. My brothers must have known this all along. I’m still living in that moment five years ago when the world stopped turning; when the sun clicked off and the stars dimmed and the earth stopped. I wonder if my brothers feel this way too.

That thought sticks in my head. My brothers. I wonder what they’re doing now, if they’re wondering about me. I try not to think about them much, but sometimes it’s impossible to stop. They were such a huge part of my life - they were my life - and to have that just be gone, like Splinter was just gone… It’s like I’ve been living in limbo. I don’t know up from down anymore, and the funny thing is, it doesn’t matter that much. I never understood ennui before – that feeling of absoultely no emotion, but that’s how life now.

I wonder what it would be like if I went back down to the sewer. Donny still lives there, as far as I know. Would it be a big, tearful reunion? Or would it just be awkward? We’ve all changed so much, I don’t know if we could relate to each other. We were kids when we split up, and so much is defferent. If we could even find Raph and Leo, I doubt they’d want to come back. They have their own lives, and we don’t fit into them anymore. It’d be like forcing a square peg into a round hole. We just don’t fit. We were so close, moreso then other brothers, we were a team. I think that, more than anything, is what’s keeping up apart now. Things were so definate then, and it would be impossible to recapture that. We would try, but we could never make it work, and splitting up for a second time would destroy us. Or at least, it would destroy me. We would just be living in the shadow of a memory. God, that’s the worst part. Not that we’ve all split up, but that we can’t go back. We can’t ever be like we were. Not ever again.

Yeah, that’s it, isn’t it? Splinter died, yes, but that isn’t what keeping us away from each other. We’re keeping ourselves away, because we know that things can’t be the same. This way we can almost pretend that Splinter isn’t dead, that he’s back in the sewer, waiting for us to come home. If we were all there, we’d have to deal with life as it is, making the harsh reality real. This, living the way we are, living in vertigo, never thinking about the past or the future, this is the only way to deal.

I feel so strange now. In the back of my head, I’d always kept that hope that we’d all be together again alive. But now I realize how stupid that is. I guess it’s better that I stop feeding myself false hope. I guess it’s better that I’ve got both feet firmly on the ground now. No more illusions of happy family reunions. God, it’s like there’s a weight on my chest. I feel like someone’s got my heart in a tight grip. I thought these kinds of relazations were supposed to make you feel better.

I know the pain will stop someday. I know I’ll stop missing them. Someday those memories will stop mattering, just like everything else. Someday looking out at the people on the street won’t inspire these emotions. Someday I won’t feel anything.

But… it hurts so bad, and I miss them so much...

Maybe I should go home.