Page 6 of Brainwashed

Looking me over, she huffed out even more frustration. “You’re covered in blood, Felix! What the hell is wrong with you??!”

My mouth fell open, but I didn’t even know how to answer. I didn’t think anything was wrong with me, per se. Other than maybe the fact that I couldn’t feel sad for the fox. But that wasn’t necessarily a problem. After all, it wasn’t likeI’dkilled him…

“Now I need to get a shovel and try to throw this away…” Mom began pacing around frantically, and my stomach bunched up in knots.

Whenever her mood was like it was then, I found myself much edgier. It was like her tension struck up my own, which was odd because I didn’t usually feel things just because other people were feeling them. In fact, I had a tendency to feel the opposite of what everyone else was expressing.

Mom rushed toward the shed and came back with a shovel. As soon as she scooped up my fox, my eyes widened, and I shouted, “No, Mom! Please! I wanted to show Dad!”

“Felix, your father doesn’t want to see that,” she barked, carrying my fox toward the trees. “He’s going to flip out if he comes home and there’s a dead goddamn fox on the table.”

“Please don’t take him…” I whined, chasing after her while she rushed away with my prize.

“Felix, go inside the house right now!” she shouted at me, but I didn’t listen.

She tossed the fox onto the floor of the woods at the edge of our backyard. Then she started digging.

I froze for a moment, watching her scooping up leaves and dirt. “Mom… what are you doing?”

Zach wandered over to us, watching by my side as our mother dug a small hole.

“What does it look like I’m doing, Felix? I’m digging a hole so we can bury this dead body.” She said it so calmly.

“Why?” Zach asked.

“Because that’s what you do with the dead,” she breathed, sounding suddenly exhausted. “You bury them.”

I don’t think the process of digging the hole then burying the fox took more than about ten minutes, but for some reason I remember it feeling like hours. It was as if we stood there in silence—after that last comment, no one said another word—for hours and hours, while the sun set and darkness spread over us like the dirt being shoveled on my fox.

Once she was done, we all went back inside the house and got cleaned up. Mom made spaghetti with chopped up hotdogs, and we waited for Dad. He didn’t get home until after we were already in bed, but I couldn’t sleep anyway, so I heard him come in.

Creeping to the crack in my bedroom door, I listened. When I heard the voices of my parents, I snuck out of my room and went to the top of the stairs. That was when the shouting began.

My parents fought constantly. My father was a quiet, stoic man. Emotionless and always serious. My mother, on the other hand, was flaky, emotional, and harebrained. To this day, I have no real idea why they would have gotten together. I know they say opposites attract, but that’s only if you enjoy the differences you and your partner possess. My parents seemed to hate everything about each other.

I listened to them fighting about the usual topics… My father asked my mother if she’d taken her pills, and she screamed at him about it, which I think meant she hadn’t. She called him ungrateful. Accused him of cheating. It was all pretty standard.

But then she said, “You know you’re fucking up your son, right?”

And he replied, “What the hell does that mean?”

“Felix. He brought home a dead animal today. Said he wanted to show it to you.”

I held my breath over my father’s silence.

It felt like many heavy minutes passed before he asked, “Did he kill it?”

“How would I know?” my mother snapped. “He’s out in the woods all the time… I wouldn’t be surprised.”

My brow furrowed, and I pinched my lower lip between my thumb and forefinger. I hadn’t killed the fox. I didn’t think I would have killed a fox…

But then my mind showed me something, like a movie with no sound.

A fox running through the woods. Me, hiding around the tree. Quiet. Undetected.

Just as he’s slowing down, I jump out from behind the tree and snap his neck.

He lies limp in my arms, like it did today.