Antony

Flies buzzed angrily as they beat at the glass of the bathroom window — no way out. Many empty corpses lay in a scattered pile beneath, having died from the heat.

Browny-black eyes cut to the pests in brief annoyance before sliding back, meeting their reflection in the dirty, water stained mirror. Legs crossed so that his weight rested heavily on one thigh, the boy — nearly a man though he still wore his youth like a shield — leaned in closer to the mirror, smiling loosely at his own reflection.

“Hello, Elizabeth.” He whispered his own name with reverence, running his fingertips over one dark brown cheek daintily. “Looking very pretty today.” He smiled dumbly at the compliment and thanked himself.

It was quiet, save for the flies, as mama had recently taken her medicine and was sleeping off the effects of it. It gave the boy some well-needed silence.

He loved his mama, loved her more than all the stars in the sky, but oh, how she could wear him down! Especially when she was in pain, oh, she’d just call his name every hour on the hour until he decided it was best to sit outside her bedroom door and patiently wait for her to start up again.

He so rarely got to admire himself.

It’s the Devil!, she would say, the Devil gettin’ in your head and makin’ you prideful.

It wasn’t the Devil, his mama blamed everything on him and it endeared Elizabeth to no end. Television not working and she couldn’t watch her programs? Devil. Store out of sugar? Devil. Queer people marching for their rights? Devil, for certain.

He’d grown up reading the same holy book as his mama and he never did understand how they’d turned out so different.

Maybe it was his youth, making him a little looser with the rules. Perhaps his mama had even been loose with the rules in her day! He laughed a little at the thought and then pursed his lips because they looked really nice like that.

He isn’t sure how long he sat in the mirror, but eventually he did get bored — Elizabeth would never claim to have the best attention span. He often hopped from one thing to another, whatever grabbed at his flippant interests and made his dopamine rush.

Hopping down from the sink counter, he snuck out past his mama’s bedroom — she always kept the door wide open to hear as best she could around the house, being bedridden as she was. Slipping down the dimly lit hallway to the front door, he grabbed a jacket off the hook, brown and verging on threadbare, and his tennis shoes before creeping out the front door.

It was a bit secretive but his mama didn’t know all of his habits, this being the one he kept the most under lock and key. It was just that he knew she wouldn’t approve, the same way she didn’t approve of him getting his nose pierced or when he got highlights in his hair.

She’d been so angry with him, berating him despite how weak she’d been. Whore, she’d called him, begging to be raped and killed like the girls on the television. He’d known that she didn’t mean that, of course, because she was his mother and she loved him, it was just fear.

And she had every right to be scared! Even as he’d been crying, he had been agreeing with her, because the world was a scary place.

Horrible things happened all of the time.

As he trudged deeper into the woods, Elizabeth thought about many things. His highlights had long since faded away and he hadn’t gotten them done again, opting to keep his hair pulled back into a braid, tied off with a pale pink ribbon. It was a plain, boring brown but it was the same colour as his mama’s hair so he didn’t mind as much.

A little further ahead, he saw the silvery glinting of metal and sped up his pace, heart pulsing with anticipation and — yes! Inside the trap was a rabbit, looking scared and defensive.

Dropping into a crouch, Elizabeth dug through the pocket of his jacket and made a little noise of triumph as he found the pocket knife within. He made short work of opening up the top of the trap and wrangling the rabbit out of it. The animal started to twist and bite at him the moment it saw the chance for freedom but Elizabeth was having none of it.

He swiftly snapped the rabbit’s neck and dropped it to the ground.

The rabbit didn’t have to be alive for this part — and frankly, Elizabeth found it to be quite cruel.

Ever since he was a small boy, he had enjoyed this strange ritual. Back then, it was bugs. Catching roaches and centipedes to gut, pulling off their legs and tossing the remains into an ant hill.

Soon, he’d moved onto mice and squirrels — once a cat but he had cried something fierce after killing it and had never done so again.

Now, it was almost methodical.

Slitting the rabbit open from sternum to groin, watching the blood spill out warm and sticky over his fingers. He could do this all day. He would mentally name the parts as he broke the ribcage and cut them out.

Heart, intestines, kidneys, stomach, so on and so forth.

He moved from a semi-crouched position to sitting cross-legged in the dirt, humming softly and gently rocking back and forth as he removed everything from inside the rabbit. He played with the organs, particularly the stomach and heart. After a moment, he gouged out the eyes and squealed with delight when they popped in his hands.

He didn’t know how much time had passed, just that he felt lighter after he was done. Or at least, he usually felt lighter — despite looking around, he couldn’t get rid of the uncomfortable sensation of being watched. It made him frown.

As always, he cleaned up his mess and reset the trap a little ways away so that no other prey would be scared away by the scent of blood.

He walked back home with bloody hands but cleaned them with the garden hose outside.

“Mama, I’m home!” He called as he stepped inside but to no response.

“Wow, she must really be out like a light..” He would bring it up to the doctor next time she came to visit. He didn’t like medications that made his mama too drowsy, they often meant she wasn’t eating enough.

Muttering softly under his breath, he hung up his jacket and kicked his shoes off, walking into the kitchen to give his hands a proper wash.

“It’s okay, Elizabeth, mama’s just sleeping.” He reminded himself, having checked on her before his admiring session in the bathroom but that was hours ago now — he was getting twitchy.

With a soft curse, he padded off to his mama’s room.

She was asleep. Her greying curls were splayed over the pillows and her breathing was loud and exaggerated with age. She was even snoring a little, and Elizabeth sighed with relief.

“Sorry, mama. I was a bad boy today.” He whispered as he left the room, leaving the door wide open behind himself.

It was time to prepare dinner.