The kids, their parents, and the television audience watch a video montage that begins with swollen-bellied mothers, then shows the children as infants and toddlers, interspersed with clips of my childhood movies, then shots of me receiving my Tony. A final video shows me delivering a speech at a children’s hospital shortly before I died. I am bald and hollow-eyed, but I say inspiring things about thinking positively and devoting oneself to a cause. Finally, waiters roll out a grand sheet cake. “THANK YOU ANNABELLE” is printed across it. The host prepares to cut into it with a saber-sized knife and invites the children to gather around with their plates.
Tears sparkle like jewels on the cheeks of Jingles’ owner. Have I heard or am I guessing that this is the final episode of Annabelle’s Children? P.P. Frederico had predicted more than a single decade. While my anthem “Who’s Your Mother?” plays, the camera pans one last time across the cake-smeared faces of my children. The song stops as the credits freeze on two names, little Harrison’s and P.P.’s, followed by their birth and death years. Maybe P.P., wherever he is, has witnessed this memorial. Maybe he and Harrison are here. Maybe everyone’s here. Do you know any different?
If my death follows a pattern, I don’t have the distance to interpret it. But I pass fewer nights attached to humans and domesticated creatures. Frequently, I slide through the dark with nocturnal hosts I may or may not see. I have wheeled with bats and lain between crickets’ whittling legs. There have been the speed and power and violence of hunting, cries of power or fear. I have burrowed, deep, into loamy soil and rotting hearts.
When I am indoors, my hosts often dive for darkness, and I catch only winks of light. Tonight I hear whispered endearments and murmurs of pleasure: there’s lovemaking, but I’m with neither partner. Too dark even for shadows—I must be attached to a dust mite between a mattress and box spring. We rock with the sex, and if by some chance Harrison from Season Four is with us, maybe he remembers that rocking gave him comfort. One of the lovers cries out. Motion stops. Every moment is eternal patience.
I’m coupled with an infant—it seems like forever since I’ve been attached to a human. His face presses into his mother’s breast. He gasps, exhausted and ecstatic from suckling. His mother watches television, but her embracing arms block the screen.
“Shh,” the mother whispers.
“Physics means pondering the imponderables,” the TV voice says. All television voices sound like the announcer’s from Annabelle’s Children. When I ponder “time,” I picture the lines a prisoner scratches on a cell wall—four lines and a cross hatch, four lines and a cross hatch—five and five and five and on and on, until everything is shaded into darkness.
My host-baby coos and frets, reconnects to his mother’s nipple.
“Mmm,” his mother sighs.
“Paul Dirac,” the television voice continues, “theorized that whether light is composed of waves or particles depends on whether you ask it a wave-like or particle-like question.”
Don’t tell me that you understand!
On this endless day I can’t tell to what or whom I’m attached; time no longer seems to be something that moves. There’s light, but I don’t ask it questions about particles or waves. The light illuminates the bookshelf I face and have been facing forever. I focus on a book with a glossy paper cover; it’s surrounded by dusty, title-less volumes. Studying the spine of this newer book is all I do.
I haven’t lost the sense that I’m attached, but either the dynamics of connection have changed (were due to change?), or I’m hosted by something imperceptible to my understanding. What could be so small? A microbe? A malignant cell?
The book I stare at is titled My Life as a Child of Annabelle: the End of Reality TV. Below the title and unreadable author’s name, a sweep of auburn hair spreads over the book’s spine from a hidden cover photo. It might be my hair. It could belong to one of my babies. I’ve looked at this spine so long I can’t imagine not seeing it. Concerning the title, I can ask one kind of question if “End” means “death,” and a different kind of question if “End” means “goal.”
As far as you know, you’re hosting all of the dead. And maybe that’s the end.
Acknowledgements
“Queen of the Waves,” Georgia Review, winter, 2015
“An Oofy Baby Sees Fortunato’s Side,” Tahoma Review, spring, 2018
“Doctor Moreau’s Pet Shop,” PANK, December, 2011
“Interstate Nocturne,” Surreal South ’11, 2011
“Refugees of the Meximo Invasion,” Roanoke Review, 2013“Cherish the Muffin Top,” Literary Orphans, 2015
“Obligates,” The Pinch, winter, 2016
“Demi-Christmas,” Grey Sparrow Journal, winter, 2013
“Blue Madeline’s Version,” A cappella Zoo, spring, 2012,
“Snow Angels Sans Merci,” Prick of the Spindle, spring, 2011
“Smooth,” Prime Number, summer, 2011
“Fiji Mermaid,” Madison Review, spring, 2014
“Lactophilia,” A-Minor Magazine, 2014
“X,” Zymbol, issue 7, 2016
“Annabelle’s Children,” Altered States, 2014
Women of Consequence Page 21
