Felixentric

Scene 21

Felix made it to the apartment before Quinn, though he walked very slowly and stared at every detail of every street he walked down.

It wasn't that he was afraid of Hen or even doubting him. It was more that he hadn't realized how put-together all of Hen's plans were or that he was a sort of mastermind.

The day had been mind blowing.

Though he wished he'd seen his father.

Or that he'd planned to have said something to Quixotic when he showed up like, "You think you can take down all of my good memories and get away with it?" or maybe a catchphrase like, "Now you'll be the one who burns." Or maybe not. Finding a good, non-tacky catchphrase was too complex.

But he also couldn't stop thinking about how freaky Hen could be. And to pretend he was killing Chemi? It was like the whole team had a layer of sinister motivation hiding under them.

When Felix got home, he couldn't do much except lie on the couch and stare at the ceiling. He needed to think about it more.

When Quinn got home, things went haywire. He had a bloody bulge on one of his temples and he was holding his rib cage tightly.

"What happened?" Felix stood up, his eyes holding on to the old shock.

"Clumsy me. I tripped on the way to the beach."

"And did all that?!"

"I hit my head on a rock and my ribs on another." He looked like he was on drugs. His eyes were drooping and he looked like he was about to pass out or puke or both.

Felix wrung his hands together. What was there to say? Curse? Tell him he was sorry? Say nothing and find bandages? He didn't do any of the above.

"I'm going to bed." Quinn limped to the bedroom, keeping his head low.

"It's just past noon."

"Time isn't real."

"Wait-."

Quinn stopped. "Yeah?"

I don't know what to do. I don't know if joining Hen's group is right. I don't know if beating up Quixotic is wrong. I don't know what's going on.

"Felix?"

Please help me make the right choices. "Nothing."

Quinn shook his head. "Whatever it is, just write it down. That's what I always do." He continued on, shutting the door behind him. Inside, he made little noise, implying he lied down on the bed without undressing.

Felix stood there for awhile. He looked at the dim lights in the kitchenette and the dark, night sky outside. He looked for a long time, until he thought of what Quinn had suggested. Write? How stupid a thought. But he spotted one of Quinn's millions of paper pads lying around.

And what did he mean? How was writing something down supposed to help, especially when Felix was no pro at it? He wasn't a wordsmith nor a verbal sentimentalist. He was just a kid with a lot of beef and little outward voice.

But as he thought about it, wasn't writing the same as painting? There's no denial in visual art. You get rid of the things you bury deep inside and make them obvious.

He found a pencil and pressed it down on the top line of the pad.

"Once upon a time," he said it aloud, but in whispers low enough so Quinn wouldn't hear from his room. This is how you start a story, right? Was he even writing a story, or just a thought? He heard himself swallow. "It was buried deep in the woods, a house... quite big on the inside for something that looked so small from the out. There was a wooden door, little square windows, cracked and crooked framing... There was only one floor, but once held four people." A lump formed in his throat and he read it again. "Maybe as we got bigger, it got smaller... and maybe that's why we started leaving one by one."

Where do I go with it?

He started chronologically. "I recall bits and pieces of my mother. She was the first to go. I wonder if she wondered... why we had to live in the middle of nowhere, where the humans couldn't see us. I wonder if she wondered whether she could actually love us. And now I wonder about my wonder whether I ever loved her at all or if she was just another reason to distrust the other humans.

'And then there's my father. He was the person who tried putting us back together even if a few of the pieces were missing from the box - our house. I could see it in his eyes with everything he did that he cared and wanted the best. But he made mistakes."

The bedroom door clicked open and Felix's heart sank. Paranoia took over his bloodstream as he struggled for the paper in his hands.

Quinn stood there, with a casual face and wandering eyes. "I just... need some water," his voice rasped.

But Felix was already flipping out. He couldn't let Quinn see the disaster among pages in his palms. It ripped once on accident, but suddenly he was tearing it to shreds. The page was his halves and then fourths and then millions.

Quinn met the action with his eyes and a shocked face. "Wha-." And suddenly those eyes were sad and regretful. "Were you actually doing it?"

His eyes met Quinn's, large and searching.

"Sorry." He looked down and then walked back into the bedroom without the cup. Instead, the bathroom sink went on and slurping noises came from the faucet. When it was quiet again, Felix sighed and cleaned up the mess of paper.

Instead of restarting after that, he just lied on the couch and lied up against its soft back. The only problem with what he wrote was that he only talked about two of the four people leaving that little, blue house. The fourth was himself, an obvious thing. But the third was left unnamed.

Unfortunately, the left out paragraph came to him in a nightmare, as he fell asleep in the dark afternoon.