The Cousin

I have no clue what I’m staring at. I know it’s my cousin’s house, but it doesn’t feel like a house any sane person would live in. I thought I was seeing things all the way out in the countryside, but now that I’m up close, this is a huge mess.

There’s a lot of nice green fields along the road to get here, but then there’s a large, wooden structure with the architectural design of a four year old plopped down in the middle of it. The house is two stories tall with an asymmetric roof composed of flat parts and random ridges. The porch is a complete mess of plant pots and soil. Then the walls of the house just had this weird setup of some kind of clunky electrical boxes. These boxes seem like they were spray painted brown to match the house’s color.

I keep still in my car to look at the letter that my cousin sent me to make sure this address was right based on the crooked numbers on the door.

“2323…I guess I’m at the right place, hm…” I do not want to walk out into this monstrosity, but it’s not like I came out here for nothing. Though while I’m in the car, I see the shutters on the window a couple feet from the front door slightly open. I figure that’s my cousin, but he did invite me here, I don’t know who else he’s expecting. Unless he’s gotten weirder over the years. I shudder at the thought of being introduced to a modern caveman when I walk up to that door.

It takes me another minute, but I have to come out of the car and try to see what’s become of my cousin. I see the window shutters close after I leave the car. Probably not a good sign, I’m hesitant to walk any further now.

As I’m contemplating the urge to leave, the front door opens, “John!” My cousin exclaimed, stepping out onto the porch. Not the modern caveman that I was expecting, he actually looks nice for himself. He’s cleanly shaved, way skinnier, wearing clean clothes, and he actually looks like he took a shower. Definitely an upgrade than how he was before.

“Felix!” I smile, walking up towards him, “It’s been too long, and you’re taking care of yourself now too? That’s awesome!” I say proudly. I go in for a hug, but he jumped back into his house like he saw a wild animal charging him. He got a clean look, but in turn got pretty skittish. I step back and give a worried look toward Felix, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…-” I scratch my head, “I guess five years is a pretty long time, eh?”

“No, no, don’t worry about it! I’m just not used to actual people is all.” Felix gives an awkward chuckle, “But it’s so nice to see you, and that my letter came through, come in, come in!” Felix waves for me to come inside. He spoke fast and his speech slurred a bit while repeating his words, hopefully that’s only because of him being jumpy. I shrug off the weird mannerisms and walk into his house.

The moment I step through the front door, I’m hit with a cold breeze and a strong scent that burns my nostrils.

“Ugh!!” I cough, “What’d you do, bleach the house before I came here?” I try to wipe my nose to rid myself of feeling like it’s on fire.

“Oh, it’s those air conditioners and the filters all over the place, keeps the air fresh and clean and keeps the air safe!” Felix exclaims as he quickly walks further into his house, not even stopping to help me. From what I see, he still lives like a pig. Like the porch, there’s a lot of dirt that clutters his house, and then there’s random little trinkets and papers scattered all over the floor. Definitely what I expected. A lot of chicken scratch on the papers from what I see, so what’s the point of even trying to read them?

A moment later, Felix comes back, paper towels in hand. “Here you go,” Felix offers, and I take the roll from him. At least he knows when to care, I almost thought he didn’t bother to learn manners.

“Thanks,” I told him before blowing my nose, getting some relief from the smell. “Now, that I’m not suffering from your home, is this where you’ve spent cooped up all this time?”

Felix nods, “Well yea, away from all the busy cities, away from people, and out in the natural world y’know?”

“Now the ‘away from people’ part makes sense, but when did you start to become a nature person?” I give a puzzled look.

“Well uh…That’s a bit of a tale,” he bounces back and turns to walk further into his home again, his voice becoming speedier “we can catch up a bit about everything, I have a lot I want to tell you! So let’s sit for a bit and I can get us a bite to eat.” With that offer I follow Felix, careful of each step I make in the messy house.

“Is that why you called me up? Because if you wanted to catch up then you could’ve done that at any time. I might’ve had some better chances to invite you to some parties, show you how a clean house looks at my place, and also show you some pizza places you might like!” I smile, thinking about how life would’ve been different if Felix never disappeared.

“Well not exactly why I called you up, but I guess that would’ve been nice, people aren’t exactly the types I want to spend my time with now, I’ve been fairly busy…” His voice trails off as we enter his living room. Just a simple arrangement of 2 chairs and a sofa with a table in front of it is all that occupied the small space. The table and sofa still had plenty of papers on them with whatever that’s written on them. With everything around and how he’s keeping himself here, I feel genuinely worried about him. “Seat?” Felix gestures to the chairs.

I sit down in one of the wooden chairs, wiping away the dirt I found on the seat of it. I take this chance to look at a few of the papers as I set them aside. Some I kinda understand with how some of the papers have machinery details and engineering design, though I never knew Felix to be the type to learn. But some of the details on the machinery don’t make sense, I took a glimpse but what does ‘human hormones’ mean? I deeply inhaled, asking the question that’s been on my mind since getting his letter, “Ok, what’s been keeping you busy for the past five years?”

“Well the thing is that I don’t know how exactly to tell you without showing you.” Felix says, still talking fast, but a little slower than before. He doesn’t sit down, but while I’m paying attention to him, he’s showing some weird movements. He’s bouncing his leg up and down while he stands and his fingers are twiddling pretty quick. I think that’s just nerves, but I have never seen him as nervous as this.

“Ok, don’t worry, I’m patient. Is it like one of the games you play or something?” I ask, concern growing in my voice.

“No, I actually stopped playing so much.” He chuckles.

“Wow, you have changed, can’t call you a no-life anymore huh?” I chuckle along with him. “But if it’s not that then what? Don’t tell me you’re following in my footsteps in the engineering route!” I smile, hoping that’s the case for him.

Felix looks to his left, so I follow his gaze. Down to the other side of the living room is a window with open shutters. Outside is a large field and tall grass, but the only thing besides that is a cow near his house. I look back at him and back at the window then back at him again.

“So…What are we looking at?” I asked.

Felix snaps his head back to me like he was broken from a trance, “Oh, you don’t see it?” Felix asked, which made me wonder if he had a few screws loose.

“Um…Let’s go outside to get a closer look, yea?”

Felix stares at the window again before nodding, “Ok.” Felix leads me to the back door and we both go into his backyard. No fences or anything, just an open field with just cow. It’s surprising to me about how it’s not running away or anything, but I guess cows are just calmer animals or something? Felix walks up to the cow, pretty timidly. I look at the cow and there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it. Though while we actually were going up to the cow, I couldn’t help but give out a laugh.

“A cow? Really Felix?” I blurt out.

“I just need time to explain, y’know it’s not that simple.” Felix says.

“It’s a cow, what is there to explain?” I walk up toward the cow and give it a firm smack on the back with my hand. The cow didn’t do much, it still ate some grass, not even registering that I had hit it. I look at Felix expectantly, “Well?”

Felix shuffled back toward the house. Felix didn’t say anything as he shuffled, so I barked, “Felix! You’ve left our family without a word, you invited me here out of your own free will, I at least deserve to know what’s going on, you said you’d tell me what you’ve been busy with!”

Felix jumps back, he stands his ground, but he’s trembling. His face is frozen in fear as he looks at me, and while seeing his face, I just couldn’t stand to see him like this. I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose as I speak again.

“I’m sorry, I just…We were all worried for you for so long, but coming here and you just confusing me like this just doesn’t help, I just want to understand why.” I explain.

“I know…But it’s better we talk inside, we need to go back in” Felix says and I agree to follow him back inside. We’re both back inside of the living room and Felix closes the window shutters. I take a little bit of a slower time walking back inside, looking at some of the trinkets. Many of them are various forms of rabbits and rabbit icons. Most of the rabbit trinkets are either broken in half or cracked or some I guess are rabbits are completely broken. Stress toys I guess?

“I can get some snacks if you want any, I didn’t mean to anger you like that…” Felix says.

I nod my head, “I guess I can eat, I didn’t mean to snap like that,” I tell him.

“Don’t worry about it, John, I was just expecting something…different.” Felix says and rushes to what I’m assuming is the kitchen. Though what Felix apparently wants me to see is still lingering in my mind. Whatever different thing he wanted me to see just wasn’t there, or was the cow? I rub my head from how weird this entire situation is.

I start to investigate around further, trying to figure out what exactly he wants me to see. The nonsense on these papers tell me very little while being completely useless. A lot of them contain similar phrasing to human hormones, then all of which I guess are inventions like machines in the shape of boxes and masks, I think might be filters based on how the diagrams appear. Then some with government facilities lik CIA and DEA and whatever other three letter organization he writes because a lot of them are likely here. I just see poorly drawn animals and stick figure drawings on these ones.

When Felix comes back, I quickly toss aside what I was looking at to focus on him. He brings a bowl of carrots. It’s an odd choice of snack, but it does seem like Felix had some good changes, at least this explains him getting skinnier.

After some time for me to cool off, and both of us eating some carrots, Felix starts to talk, “I just can’t show you, not yet anyway, but I’ve been doing some research on the nature around us,” Felix starts, which at least explains some of the animal drawings and trinkets, “I know you won’t understand but do you think we really understand nature to begin with?”

“I mean…Before today, I didn’t think you were one that cared, but is that what all of these papers are for?” I ask, picking up one of the papers from the ground with the government and the animals. The one I have in my hand says ‘Don’t trust what they want you to see’. I visibly recoil in my seat from reading it before hearing what Felix has to say.

“Yea, but I care now and I just want to make sure I can have everyone see from my perspective. I can’t just say it because everyone would think I’m crazy, but if you look at the facts then a lot just does not make sense.” Felix explains as he paces around in front of me.

“Well that’s cryptic…” I say as I toss the paper aside, “And what facts don't make sense?” I ask, going to grab another piece of paper.

“Well easy! Do you think life just ends?” He asks.

“What kind of conspiracy nut question is that?” I bark back. “Of course it does.”

“Wait wait, just listen and understand, or just look here!” Felix says, speeding over to one of the walls to bring my attention to a section of papers pinned to it.

The papers look a lot like the nonsense I was trying to figure out while Felix went to prepare a snack. A lot of stuff about hormones and not trusting what the government doesn’t want you to see, but still nothing clear.

“So I’ve just been doing research on how hormones affect us and I just believe I’m onto something, something that they don’t want us to know, something they’ve been using to control us for centuries!”

“Ok first, who’s they, and what are you on about?” I ask, somehow getting more lost as Felix talks. I want to try to understand, but is this really what he’s spent five years doing? A conspiracy theory? I know he’ll say government, but I just want to be sure.

“They as in the people above the government, the people that want humanity to thrive instead of use them for greed, the same people who punish humans that are no longer useful and in our influence by hormones, we perceive them as dead.”

“...You’ve kinda lost me there...Like people that aren’t dead are told to us to be dead?” I really want to try to understand.

“Well no, no one is dead actually!” Felix says enthusiastically.

“Uh-huh…?”

“But that’s just to say, I’ve experienced it, I just escaped this twisted system of humanity, and I just want to help the rest of the family see that, to live off the grid with me and be safe!” Felix picks up a rabbit trinket and crushes it with his bare hands as quickly as he grabs it.

I hold up my hand, “Hold on, so that’s the reason you invited me, to escape some matrix type shit with you?”

“Well, if you’re willing to,” Felix says softly.

“Felix,” I sigh, “I appreciate you studying all of whatever this is and trying to protect me and the rest of the family, but we all have lives of our own. I don’t know how you’ve been spending yours out here, but I’m not leaving my job, my home, and my friends to be afraid of some conspiracy that probably doesn’t even exist. I’m sorry,” I tell him, but this only made Felix shake his head frantically.

“No, no, no, no, this isn’t any conspiracy, I know it, I lived through it, I’ve seen it!” Felix says, almost pleadingly.

“Well what do I know? You’ve been dodgy on what you’ve been doing this entire time.” I groan, “what am I supposed to think?”

“John, I just need you to believe in my words, you don’t know anything about what’s truly become of the world, what I’m trying my best to show you, we just need to wait a little longer and I can!”

“Oh my god, this entire time, you told me that you’re going to show me something and I’ve been waiting this whole time. What is it that I need to wait for huh? Tell me!”

“The filters and air conditioners,” Felix says, “I just needed you to have enough time in here so the hormones won’t affect you anymore and you can finally see clearly.” As Felix explains this, my eyes widen. The engineering details on the sheets I’ve read…

“Felix, I’m just going to calmly say this…If your house is pumping drugs this entire time and I’ve been breathing that in…”

“No! No, nothing like that at all, there’s no drugs, just filters out the hormones that make you blind to what you need to see.” Felix says, which does not help the argument that it’s not drugs.

“Ok, I’m leaving, you can stay here and do your psycho conspiracies, but leave me out of it, ok!” I yell, exasperated and debating on whether I should rush out of this drug filled space or punch my cousin for trying to drug me.

“No! Wait I can prove it! Watch come look!!” Felix ran toward the window and opens the shutters. Obviously, I make my way toward the front door so I can leave, but I hear Felix shout, “John please! Just look again, I’m not crazy!” I’ll regret this, but with a sigh, I walk back to Felix to take a short glimpse at his window before I leave, just to please him.

I take a small glimpse out of the window and begin to turn away, but I stop after a few steps. I might’ve seen something wrong because I know what I thought I saw couldn’t be possible. I turn back to look out the window again, this time I know that I’m not seeing things.

“Felix…What happened to the cow?”

“That’s what I wanted to show you! This is why I wanted to get rid of all the hormones, so you can see the truth!” Felix’s words registered, but I was completely engulfed in the sight before me. I slowly look down at the hand I smacked the cow with before looking back up. It’s sickening.

“This is what I wanted to show you, John, something that happens to anyone that are deemed worthless by them or just perceived to be dead, humans don’t die, animals are given to us as a lie, don’t you see? I’ve experienced it and I don’t want anyone I care about to experience it either…” Felix gestures to the supposed cow outside, “They’re human too.”

As Felix says those words, I stumble back and fall over one of his chairs. He tries to help me up, but I snap, “Don’t touch me!” Then rush out of his house. It’s a pigsty, a place where drugs pump into his house, just a psycho house. I couldn’t even pretend that any of what Felix said was true, It just isn’t.

I get into my car and immediately start driving, thinking about what I just saw. There’s no way a human would ever bring themselves to that position, there’s no way there’s technology advanced enough to alter your sight of other people, there’s just no way. I have to tell someone or just make sure there’s no drugs in my system first thing when I get back. This visit is just a mistake, Felix is crazy and just tried to drug me, he’s just a conspiracy nut now. That’s what happened, and that’s what I’ll believe.