Cures for Hunger by Deni Béchard

“Someday.”
    I wanted him to tell me a story about what we’d do. If I could think about the future when everything would be different, then each boring day at school wouldn’t be so bad. But he said nothing, and I sprawled on the rug and watched the news, which felt more serious even than school. With his eyes locked on the screen, he inhaled slowly through his mouth, the way I did when my nose was plugged, and I wondered if he breathed like this because of something to do with his nose.
    â€œBonnie said your nose isn’t real,” I told him.
    â€œWhat?” He glanced down at me.
    â€œShe said doctors gave you a new one. How did it get broken?”
    He hesitated, cheeks scrunched up as if he might become angry, though I kept my face curious and unafraid. It wasn’t easy, but it worked.
    â€œSomeone hit me,” he said.
    â€œWhy?”
    He shrugged. “It’s a long story. I was coming out of a . . . a bar, and they were waiting for me, and they . . . they hit me in the face with towing chains.”
    â€œWhat’s a towing chain?”
    â€œYou use it to pull cars.” He glanced back at the TV, but I had the sense that I was missing a pretty good story. After all, who just went and hit someone in the face with chains?
    â€œWhat did you do?” I asked.
    He stared down at me where I lay on the rug. “Well,” he said and cracked a grin, “I gave them the worst beating of their lives. They cried like babies and ran away.”
    I was waiting for the story to go on, but he yawned and focused back on the TV. When had he stopped telling stories the way he used
to? He said nothing, and I grew so bored of the man’s head droning away on the TV screen that I left to read at the kitchen table.
    After dinner, I asked my brother what would happen if there was a nuclear war. How did it all work? He focused his large brown eyes on mine, nodded seriously, and took a breath. Then he described a future of cannibalistic humanoids in caves who’d hunt down good humans. The monster humans would eat people because there’d be no animals left. The good humans, though, might not eat at all. Given that I could eat endlessly, it occurred to me that I might become a monster human.
    Later, in bed, I couldn’t bear not understanding all that was happening—the way my parents ignored each other and rarely laughed. I stared at the dark ceiling until the house became quiet and stayed that way for so long I thought I might fall asleep. Then, downstairs, footsteps slowly crossed the wooden floor and just stopped, as if someone was standing and thinking, not sure where to go or what to do next, as if too afraid to move. Even now, without my knowing, so much could be happening. I might wake up and find the world changed—sirens and detonations forcing us underground, faceless creatures capturing me, tying me to a table and brandishing knives.
    In a dream, I crossed a yellow field, running toward my mother, who appeared gray, caught in motion, a colorless snapshot—her hand extended, floating before me as I reached. In the center of the sky appeared a black shape like a fighter jet. It began to spin as, from every horizon, darkness rose, and there was no more light.
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    In the morning, my father was gone, and after breakfast my mother said that we were going into town. A bag held her presents, and if ever there were proof of the nonexistence of Santa, it was this: my mother with her receipts, leading us into the mall to return everything my father had bought her.
    Outside the clothing store, she put my brother in charge while she went inside. My sister sang quietly to herself as we watched the crowds surge past Boxing Day signs.

    A slouching woman stopped and stared. After glancing around, she came closer. She had blond, frizzy hair and a long jacket that reminded me of burlap. She asked if we were alone.
    â€œOur mother is just over there,” my