Above the sink hangs a painting. The pale yellow sky contrasts with a black bull in the fields of withered grass. The bull is looking up with his snout open, barring big yellow teeth towards the white sun peeking from behind a milky mist.
I watch the painting every day as I wash my hands. It’s Monday and it’s October, so I wash my hands a lot. In autumn, I unfeather the ducks every Monday. Back in the day, my little brother did it too, because we were children. Then he grew into a boy and I aged into a girl, so dad took him hunting on the weekends instead. Within a year, my little brother looked at plucking feathers as something beneath him.
I wash my hands. Under my nails, there’s blood from gutting the birds. My nails are too long again. In the evening, before I go to sleep, I bite them uncomfortably short. When I was little, mom used to cut my nails. But mom left a long time ago, and I never learned to do it myself. I bite the skin around the cuticles. It’s dry from hot water, and from how much soap I use to mask the smell of death.
I watch the painting. The sun grows smaller, and the bull’s eye tints red.
Another heap of ducks is on the table. My brother and father are watching TV. I say: “I’m sick of eating ducks.”
Before I serve dinner, I wash the pots. I hear dad and brother smoke on the porch. They laugh and spit on tiles. They spit, I wipe.
I wash my hands.
I bite my nails. And skin. And fingers.
My brother’s tutor comes over on Tuesdays. I always reheat some duck for him and pack him more of it to-go. Sometimes he offers that I join the lesson. My brother loves to brag about how terrible I am at math. My father asks if it costs extra and it does. I give a polite smile and say there is no time for me to join, because I need to wash the porch before the sun goes down.
When my brother and father leave for the weekend, they say to lock the doors and be careful. I tell them to wear their hats and gloves, to be careful too, but a different kind of careful.
They come back, and dad has a cold. Then my brother catches it.
I watch the bull open its snout wider, and grow bigger while the sun shrinks.
I wash my hands, and I wash the sweaty bedsheets.
I bite my nails until the rust stings on my tongue. I push my hand into my mouth and bite more, stifling the scream.
I get sick. Father and brother are ready to hunt again.
On Monday, I have a fever. With a shaky hand, I dig inside another duck. It’s warm from boiling water and somewhere inside I squeeze its heart. Another duck squeaks and flops its wings, shaking the water from the feathers. Fly away, I think. Flee. The bull rips his snout and manages to swallow the sun. The canvas turns black.
My brother comes into the kitchen. He looks at me and I look at him. Something in his eyes changes and with a napkin in his hand, he approaches me.
“You have some blood on your face,” he says, and gently wipes it. For a moment, he is my little brother. So good and kind. So close to me, it hurts. The anger that stirred quietly suppressed now finds its way to the surface. Like a big wave, it washes over me. I look at my brother’s long nails. How clean they are. And how soft his skin is. I sob. I bite! And I hold, sinking my teeth into his hand. He shrieks and hits me. Hits enough for me to let go and step aside. I laugh. I lean on the fridge, and my eyes wander towards the painting.
The bull runs through the stars with the dead sun in his stomach. The boulder weighs him down, but he doesn’t understand why. He thinks that’s what he has to do, to keep himself warm through the winter.
Viktorie Kravčenko
