[ WP ] You 're back home for the first time in years . This is where you grew up . It seems like the more things change , the more they stay the same .

I had made a promise to never come back. My brother said he would kill me if I came back to work in the mines. The brain I had came along once in a generation. Those were his words, not mine. Dad died in those helium mines. That was not my fate. Now, I am back after 12 years on Earth. My brother did n't kill me when he saw me, but he could not hide the sadness in his eyes. I could see how much it hurt to see me again and how disappointed he was when he saw me take the elevator into the mine. 
 
 Above ground, Tsiolkovsky Lunar Colony was largely the same. Too many bars and miners with too much down time. Not enough women to keep the sexually frustrated men from starting fights and pulling knives and drinking too much synthetic vodka. 
 
 Of course, things were different here too. Not much different really. There was a direct mag lev to the American colony now, but I guess the biggest difference was the secret research station which housed all of my work. Ii kept me from getting dirty from all the moon dust. I did n't have a speck of the stuff on me. That never happened. Yet, my brother would see me after work, and he would never put it together. For as right as he was about my abilities and for how much I had changed, he had stayed the same. For him, success was leaving this place. For him, failure was coming back. I could never tell Max, my brother, that my work so need to know that I had to leave Earth. 
 
 I met him one night after our shifts. We went to one of the many bars frequented by tourists. The fact that he came here told me enough. Max was looking for a fight, but, when he saw me, he shouted `` Sergei, you came.'' He was already drunk. He threw him arm around me and dragged me to the bar. 
 
 `` You should n't have come back, little brother. You made a mistake.'' 
 
 `` Max, do you notice that I do n't get dirty from working in the mine?'' 
 
 `` What? All miners get dirty, Sergei. Some more than others.'' 
 
 `` I do n't. Max, I do n't.'' 
 
 `` What are you trying to tell me? That you chose to come back here?'' 
 
 `` Maybe. Maybe, that's it.'' 
 
 Max turns away from me with sadness in his eyes, perhaps a tear. `` I do n't want to look at you.'' 
 
 People who I have never seen before enter the bar. I stand up to leave. 
 
 `` I'm sorry, Max.'' 
 
 He waves me away. I start to leave. The men are Americans from Earth. I know their kind. Stand out like a Cossack in Japan. They are big and drinking fast. I walk back to my brother with a bad feeling in my stomach. 
 
 `` Max, we should go.'' I grab his arm. He pulls it away. 
 
 `` I'm staying. I'll see you tomorrow.'' 
 
 A woman walks into the bar. Max knows her. I ca n't get him to leave now. I just hope I see him tomorrow, but Max is drunk and I can see a knife peeking out of his pocket. I've stayed the same enough to know how this is going to end, but I've also changed enough to recognize that he has stayed the same and there's no stopping what's coming. 
 
 *** 
 
 I have more writing at r/nickkuvaas.
