The Fox Man

He was dreaming about the Fox Man again.

He was a Boy lying on a lumpy twin bed, wrapped up in musty-smelling sheets, staring at the wall and trying to ignore his mother crying on the pull-out behind him.

Where were they again? It had a silly name, one that was definitely trying too hard. Like how Greenland was covered in ice but Erik the Red called it Greenland so that people would want to go there. Doesn’t your brain go to weird places when you’re dreaming?

The Moonlight Hotel.

Yes, that was it. The Moonlight Hotel. It wasn’t even a hotel — his mom’s beat-up Toyota Corolla was just outside their door. The complimentary breakfast was stale bread and those little plastic squares of jam. There was a pool with green water, but it didn’t smell enough for the Boy’s mom to stop him from jumping into it all day until his fingers and toes were all shrivelled raisins.

What a week that was. The Boy remembered it as a strange time, but what was so strange about it?

Oh, right, thought the Boy as he stared at the Fox Man. He was sitting on a chair across the room, staring right back at him, his big-dumb-wooden fox mask hanging off his head. 

The Fox Man didn’t say anything. He never did.

And the Boy didn’t say anything either. He’d mentioned it to his mother the first time he saw the Fox Man. “Mon petit garcon,” she replied, ruffling his hair. And that was all she said, all that she needed to say, because the look in her eyes was puzzled and heartbroken and the Boy decided that he wasn’t going to mention it to her ever again. It wasn’t a great time to add more to her plate.

Now was not a great time for anything. Not when your mother is crying ten feet away from you.

The dream was always the same. He was always in this bed. His mother was always crying behind him. The Fox Man was always sitting in front of him. Just a man in a mask who looked at a Boy trying to go to sleep in an uncomfortable bed, seemingly saying without words,

… and what are you going to do about this, kid?

When he woke up the next morning, the Boy would forget the whole thing.