He'd spent hours in the living room, with a stack of tapes and the home theatre system, recording, rerecording, and generally keeping the neighbors awake. "It's sort of loud in here," I said to him.

He spent hours scrambling around the house searching for the sharpie to label his mixtape. "This will be perfect, if I can only finish it," he said to himself.

Unable to find a sharpie, he ran out the back door, grabbed his bike and churned off into the night.

I hopped in the car and followed behind at a safe distance. He stopped off at 7-11 and came out writing on the side of the white tape. He held it up to the light and smiled widely. A man followed him out of the store, dressed in a black cape.

"Vhat have ve here," he said. My brother looked up at him with glee. "We have here a mixtape to create agnostics."

"Agnostics? Vhy vould you not vant civilians to believe?"

My brother laughed and said, "My lovely girlfriend won't hold my hand! She says it's against the Law! This will destroy her faith, and then I can hold her hand!"

"Aren't you a bit young? And shouldn't you be believing anyvay? Yourself, you belive nothing?"

"Nothing. We're alone in this vast universe: no god, no santa, no dracula."

The man in the cape laughed loudly. "HahHAhHAH! Vell, ve vill see, ve vill see."

He crouchded down, smiled at my brother, took the tape and vanished into the night.