That’s the way it always is, wherever he is. Whenever. It doesn’t matter. People always love him. He’s got charm, he’s got looks, he’s polite, he’s friendly. He’s perfection incarnate. It’s always been like that.

It’s a rule in stories, you know. That rule. The one about the third child? The second child endures hardships but ends up fairly content with a nice, kind husband, and a slightly more than normal life. The third child gains fame and fortune, marries their one true love, and is adored by the population of the world. The first child is the one who is stuck in the doldrums of life. The evil one. The one everyone hates. Always. The eldest is blamed for everything. Everyone forgets about the eldest in favour of the precious third child. The youngest. The baby.

It never seemed to matter how smart I was, he was always smarter. If he weren’t, it didn’t matter, because I would be told I should have done better, I had to do better, it was my duty to do better. I’m the eldest, and therefore I have to be perfection. I have to be my father. If I’m not, I must be a failure.

The eldest can never be good enough to satisfy anyone.

The best is always expected to be better than everyone else.

Any sign of being better than someone else is discarded as a fluke, a cheat, or ignored completely, when you’re the eldest.

I left home to seek my fortune when I was young.

I thought if I went far enough I would somehow escape being the eldest.

You can never get away from being the eldest. It’s like something tattooed on your skull in flashing neon letters for the world to see. For the world to behold the fact that you are someone who is meant to be in the background. Not someone who should be acknowledged. Not someone who deserves attention and love. Just someone who gets criticism from every angle.

I could take over the world, conquer the universe, with the powers at my disposal. But it wouldn’t matter. It would turn out that he was the Creator.

I ran and ran, feeling his shadow on my heels every day, never letting myself stay in one place long enough to form friends. If I could find someone who didn’t automatically turn his mind off when someone who’s an eldest child.

I spent years running from him, not even sure if he would tear himself away from his perfect life to bother with me. Why would he?

Without warning, one day I found somewhere I couldn’t bear to leave.

It isn’t the people. They’ve never even known I existed. I may as well have been invisible, for all they knew. For all they noticed. For all they ever cared. Of course, some would speak to me, smile at me, even talk to me.

Until someone would arrive and take pity on the poor, tortured soul stuck in my company. Alone with a cursed firstborn child. They’d come running, eager for conversation, and drag whomever it happened to be off to another side of the room. Leaving me alone.

Months of the loneliness seemed to go on and on, never-ending. If I could have just fallen into darkness, letting it embrace me, hold me in a lover’s embrace, and smother me, I would have been happy. Better than living near light that could never warm my body.

Eventually, he came into my life, a spark of comfort and warmth in the darkness. He would hold me, cosset me, protect me from the world. He was all that I needed. Damn those people who never saw my shadow. I didn’t care, as long as I could curl into the grasp of his warm arms and feel him with me. Feel protective, feel loved.

I could almost forget the fact that outside of his soothing aura, I was worth no more in people’s eyes than a speck of dust. But in his arms, I could feel safe, important, cherished. I was actually happy with him. We got married. We had a son. Our first, who, like any infant, is immune to the effects of being the eldest. As long as he is the only as well as the eldest.

I’ve been here for over a year now.

He’s found me.

Just as I was beginning to enjoy myself, to be a person in my own right, to be someone who mattered, even in some small way, he came back.

I’m the eldest again.

Now I stand in the shadows, watching in silence as he converses shyly and happily with the people I’ve been living near for over a year. Acquaintances. Never friends. Never people to care about me. Never people to care about anyone but their group, their life long friends. Never me.

But him . . . they like him. They’re talking to him. They’re accepting him with open arms. They like him.

They never liked me. Why would they? They certainly never will now. He never says anything good about me. Just about how I don’t live up to expectations, how I should be more responsible, more mature . . .

Is it fair? I didn’t ask to be the eldest. I didn’t ask to be the one who’s pushed off to the edge of people’s consciousness. Ignored. Given one match’s worth of light when a bonfire’s available. A really hot match, maybe, but a match nonetheless.

So I stand in the darkness, hidden by the shadows, with tears on my cheeks, while I watch him bask in the warmth of the fire, before I disappear to lose myself in the light of the match.