Schoolyard Grudges, Amnesia, and Dead Fish.

The Broken Gutter, Horace, and the Purple Hippopotamus

The next major event leading to the night of July 23rd was when my cousin, Felix, stayed with us. The last time I'd seen Felix, he was in middle school. Felix had always been a little odd, frankly put, and his parents were utterly baffled by his admittedly strange behavior. As a result, he spent the majority of the year in a boarding school reknown for its apparent effectiveness in enforcing orthodoxy. However, not even Junior Jail, as he called it, could "cure" him of his quirks, and so Felix was largely left alone. As a result, Felix took to chemical highs instead of friends and family to achieve his happiness.

His parents then sent him to rehab, which worked for a total of two weeks after he left the place. His parents then decided that the best place for Felix was with my family, which, in retrospect, was a piss poor idea.

The first sign of trouble was apparent the very moment that Felix arrived. He'd decided that our hydrangeas were, in fact, a toilet, and used them as such. He then had to be forcibly removed from the raspberry bush, where he was sure that he'd seen a purple hippopotamus, which, if he was to be believed, was on it's way to the "plum jam room" to "make off with the hourglasses." Unfortunately, his quest to thwart the nefarious plot was sidelined, so I suppose that means that I should be watching out for large African animals of violet hue.

Once Felix was appropriately situated in the dining room, my parents attempted some form of communication, which seemed to be mainly composed of vigorous head nodding from my mother and the occasional grunting noise from my father. Felix seemed to have fallen into some sort of open- eyed coma. My sister, who was studying to be a doctor at the time, was worried that he may have been experiencing an absence seizure, but as he seemed to have merely fallen asleep, no further steps were taken.

My sister, Melanie, was (and is, she hasn't died (yet)) pretty in her own way, and Felix, as it turns out, was quite interested. He spent his first week with us pining pathetically and making sad, drug- addled attempts at seduction. Melanie rejected each advance politely, as befitting her nature,but ultimately confined herself to her quarters. As a result, Felix attempted to reach her window by scaling the side of the house, which led to both a broken rain gutter and a broken Felix. His leg broke in two places, which restricted him to his bed (the couch) for a while. No one was terribly sorry, as it turned out, especially Melanie, who seized the brief respite in a manner that would make Horace proud, and drove to Florida with her bum of a boyfriend in his banana yellow van.