Page 5 of Brainwashed

My invisibleness worked in my favor.

It was an afternoon in spring. I was walking home through the woods, weaving in between trees, jumping over fallen branches, avoiding the prickly bushes. Pine needles crunched under my feet as I tried to step lightly, practicing my quiet. But then I stopped short at the sight.

Red.It was blood.

A dead fox lay there, its midsection torn open. It must have been the prey of a coyote.

I wasn’t scared, though. I just couldn’t stop looking at the insides of the dead animal.

I knelt down next to it, to get a closer look. It didn’t smell awful, so it had probably only been there a few hours. I could see bones and certain innards left behind by whomever had slaughtered the poor thing. Its eyes were open, but there was no life behind them. They were vacant.Empty.

Lifting my right hand to my chest, I placed my palm over my own heart. I felt it beating, reminding myself that I was alive. The beating sped up as I stared at the dead animal… Blood matted in its fur. With my left hand, I poked at the insides of the beast. The blood was wet and sticky. The mushy stuff inside felt weird, but my heart was thumping even faster beneath my right palm.

I’ve always liked animals. Maybe I liked them more when I was a kid, though we had no pets. Even so, I thought animals were alright. They usually ignored me like humans did.

In this moment, however, I felt nothing for the fox. I wanted to feel bad for him… I desperately wanted my chest to grow heavy with sadness that he was dead.

But it didn’t. I felt nothing but riveted.

At the time, I chalked it up to a genetic love of science. My father, Dr. Harmon Darcey, was a neuroscientist. He studied the brains of humans and animals alike. He had many interesting books on such things in his office, and it had always fascinated me. When he found out that I had an interest in science, he began bringing home things for me to look at.

Once he showed me a human brain. It was cool, but I had been more interested in how he’d obtained the brain, which he later explained he hadn’t done himself. It was removed by someone else.

After that, I couldn’t sleep. My mind was loud with thoughts of how one would cut into a human being to locate the brain. The types of knives and tools required to do something like that… It was captivating to think about.

The dead fox on the ground was like a free cadaver. So I picked it up in my arms, as carefully as possible, and carried it back toward the house.

The sun was about ready to set, which meant that, hopefully, Dad would be home soon. He worked a lot, very long hours, so he wasn’t always home for dinner. But I crossed my fingers that today he would be. I wanted to show him what I’d found. I thought maybe we could dissect it together.

Just thinking about what we could use to do something like that had pep in my step as I pranced through the forest, clutching the lifeless fox’s body to my chest. Scurrying through the trees into our backyard, I saw my brother, Zach, playing in his sandbox. I waltzed over, pride in the form of a smirk covering my lips.

Zach looked up at me, sand smattered across his cheek. His eyes dropped to the fox and his face immediately morphed into one of disgust. “Is that real??”

I nodded enthusiastically. “I’m gonna show it to Dad.”

“That’s gross.” He went back to his toys.

I simply rolled my eyes and strolled toward the house.

My brother is three years younger than me. At the time, he was nine, and to say that we didn’t have much in common would be an understatement. We’d never been close, mainly because as soon as Zachary came along, he was the primary focus in our household.

Our mother’s attention had always been on herself more than anything else. Well, herself and her marriage to our father, which was strained even on the best days. But once baby Zach came into the picture, the little maternal affections I had once received were shifted onto him.

I told you… I’m invisible.

Bringing my fox to the picnic table, I plopped him down, rolled up my sleeves, pushed my glasses up my nose and began checking out his anatomy. For three blissful minutes, I was lost in my own world. A place where torn flesh, blood, and gore weren’t gross. They were fascinating. They’re just parts of us, after all.

We’re all made up of the same things.

But when I heard my name screeched from the patio, I knew my time was up.

“Felix Harmon Darcey! What on earth is that on my picnic table?!”

Glancing up, I flinched at the sight of my mother storming over, visibly fuming. Mom was usually always up in arms over something. She yelled a lot, sometimes at us, sometimes at nothing. Her moods were perpetually up and down, and I could tell from the way her hair was in disarray, like she’d been pulling at it, and the lines around her eyes, that she wasn’t happy today.

“Oh God, that’s horrendous! Where did you find this??” she squawked, observing my fox with disgust on her face.

“In the woods…” I mumbled, standing as she shooed me away from it.