The Family Myths by Nicholas Cook

My name is Hyacinth. It’s the name Mom gave me because I was born the color of spring flowers, wrapped in my fleshy cord. A nurse breathed life into me. Babies are supposed to be born pink, Mom said, born crying. I was as quiet as a bouquet.

*

The first boy I kiss does not love me back. We are seven and squeezed into his bed. I’ve brought my stuffed dog because I cannot sleep without him. The boy calls me a loser, a rotten boy. All boys, I now know, taste like paper.

*

When I’m three, my brother is born. He’s got the devil’s brand, a red tail they cut off at the hospital, leaving a pink swirl like peppermint candy. For the first six months his eyes are blood stained. A sign he came from the dust Dad put inside Mom’s belly. Later, we won’t see Dad for years.

*

I fall in love with a boy who says things like, “everyone is depressed” and “if you knew what it was like to be me.” His family is free of myths but hide things like Tylenol and drain cleaner. I visit him in the hospital where he is sometimes, where he chews his toothbrush to a point, swallowing the plastic bits as evidence.

*

Mom was a beautiful fish swimming in a red river. Dad plucked her free and made her our mother. He put us inside her belly until we rose like phoenixes. Each morning, my brother is reborn a little worse than before. He caws himself awake and bangs on my chest. He’s the feathered thing that ruins my dreams.

*

In school, I’m in special ed classes because I can’t pronounce my Rs, because I’m late to read like everyone else.

*

My brother floats below the monkey bars. He is upside down, his brand for everyone to see. Even the teachers are afraid to touch him. Mom’s friend says his aura is red, carried over from birth.

*

The boy loves me back, but takes a handful of lithium anyway. He has regular liver tests. He shaves the hair from his entire body and says it’s not fair we can’t be reborn.

*

Mom drops us off for ice cream while she goes to see her friend at the hair salon. My brother lets his chocolate ice cream melt into a soup, then he drinks it, piecing the cup with his pointed teeth. Dad says rebirth is easy, every morning we chose to be the person we were before.

*

“Only Indian men disappear,” Mom’s friend says, even though Dad’s white. She rubs Mom’s feet, and I talk to my friend on the phone, his breath so heavy I swear the phone is sweating. My brother has painted war wings on Mom’s legs, red sheets of violent flames. Mom kisses her friend. I sit in the quiet, listening to the sound of other people.

Nicholas Cook lives in Dallas, TX. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Spelk, (b)OINK, 100 Word Story, A Quiet Courage, New Flash Fiction Review, Camroc Press Review, and elsewhere. His story The Peculiar Trajectory of Space Objects won second place in the Feb 2017 Bath Flash Fiction Award.