Free Beast

by Suzanne Marine

  And this is how a child walks into my life.

  His name is Danita. We've gone back to the street three days in a row to see if anyone would rush towards us in relief. Waited for hours, but nothing. I must go back to work tomorrow, can't take any more days off, so he will stay with mother during the day. I called the police, but only to ask if anyone had reported a missing child. No one had. He is a stray animal left behind to fend for himself. I hesitate to hand him over to the city's child protective services. I worry about leaving him in the hands of uncaring strangers that consider him to only be a case or a number. He is so young and helpless and new. It breaks my heart to imagine him navigating the world without a genuine advocate. So, for now, I will take him wherever I go, including Jamie's.

  I've told him that his parents can't be found, they are lost. I asked if he knows where they live and he shrugged his shoulders. I asked for a last name and he didn't know it. He seems to have been neglected, educationally at least. He doesn't have a normal-sized speaking vocabulary for a child his age. How can he not know his own last name? It bewilders and saddens me. Yet somehow, I'm strangely relieved he found me. With mother and I, he has a chance to learn, grow, be safe. I asked him if he would like to stay with us since his parents are lost. He was silent for a moment, then nodded his head with a shy smile and said, wait mama.

  It has been so long since I knew a young child. His small bones are delicate and fragile, easy to snap in half. Not yet solidified. His young mind is trusting and open. Not yet trained to judge friend from foe, navigate from bad to good. His voice, though shy, is a small, cheerful chirp that hangs in the air long after he's spoken. His soul is clear under a layer of ego, tainted with fear by this experience though not yet really tested by life's enormous struggles. His smell is sweet and clean. Not yet muddied and made murky by hormones. He looks out the window before falling asleep, perhaps wondering where his mother is, she's out there somewhere. All of this makes me fearful for him, protective and stubborn.

  He has a good appetite and loves listening to mother's stories. Over and over, at his request. He memorizes the minute nuance of every dip and high, all the hushed, still moments in the story. I can see it in his deep eyes, his knowledge of the world expanding with every word, rippling through what little presumptions he used to have. And now, he sometimes delightfully finishes her sentences for her with his broken language skills. It shows he's growing more comfortable with us, means he's acquiring more language. With Jamie, he is subdued and cautious making me wonder if a male has scared him in the past.

  I don't know how long we can do this. At Temple, we tell people he's the son of relatives who are traveling. I want to hang onto him forever, to see him through safely to adulthood. Not because I've ever wanted to be a mother, I've always been ambivalent, but because I don't trust the world, don't trust people to be unselfish, gentle and kind. His presence in my life has revealed and actualized a part of my subconscious I never really knew existed, the part of me that believes people, in general, are selfish or cruel. And some are absolutely predatory. I want to shield him from all of it. He's somehow landed in my life, I can't turn my back on him even if it would be easier, even if it's naïve to think I could do this. I couldn't live with myself for not trying.

  Our lives are now linked, the black and white static of my life stitching into colors and shapes I've seen before but have never really noticed until I viewed life through a child's eyes. All the old things seen as new, all the ways you can be damaged by life.

  ZERO

  The man-clone from the river is back. On our table. He is not the fat kind, he's the fit, stocky kind. Is this the exact one from the river? The lungs are normal-sized, he is a perfect specimen of strong mankind without the brains. A single gunshot wound rests on his forehead, execution style.

  I've given up trying to point Dr. M's attention to these copies. He refuses to understand, identify. Everything is on his terms, never on mine. I'm never allowed to contribute to our conversation other than what he wants or has deemed allowable. He's not a collaborator, but a rogue offshoot of the system wanting to control me.

  The only decision I have is whether or not I want to do what he wants. If I don't tell the world, will he dispose of me somehow. Or will he go on with life as usual, as if he never asked me to tell. Leave that loose thread hanging. Will he grace me with compassion and let me live. I know there's a human side to him, I know it. With feelings, hopes and dreams. I hope for his idealism to favor me. A hidden part of me knows the answer. But the part of me that interacts with the world and with him refuses to acknowledge how much of a quandary this really is. It'd be too frightening. I suppose I'm not as brave as I thought I would be.

  Perhaps we don't have one hundred percent free will in life. Life sometimes corrals you into a part of its thorny maze where only two decisions can be made, where Venn diagrams and strategies and slipping out are impossible. Where pressure and time and life mineralize. Perhaps it's a test of some kind set by your god or the universe, perhaps it's simply bad luck and timing, perhaps it's to transform you into something brighter. A glittering, unadulterated version of yourself. A diamond.

  I toss and turn, tell myself to go back to sleep. Try counting forwards and backwards. Try dreaming of shadows and emptiness. Of pulled cotton clouds, airless translucent atmosphere. Of over there, that space just above the tree tops where I fly and flitter.

  I turn and face Danita. His sweaty face turns to the side in deep sleep. I sweep his hair from his forehead as if to wipe his troubles away. We've put the beds together and now sleep on them horizontally.

  I turn to the other side and see mother's profile, bony precise against the night. A street lamp shines into the room, dusts our crowns.

  A tear falls out of her eye. She must be dreaming of her past, my father. She raises her hand up and I check to see if she's awake, but she's in another diorama. Sleep moving, abundant with the highs and lows of sleep lullabies.

  I grasp her hand, hold it in mid-air for some uncountable time, bring it down gently to the bed where we'll be more comfortable. A soft landing. I finally fall asleep with her fingers interlaced with mine in a tenuous, vulnerable grasp. Never let me go as I deep glide, deep swim into slumber.

  In the morning, a few hours later, I find she's gone cold. And I realize that her tear was because she was leaving me behind, beyond her control.

  I am alone.

  I hear the family next door running unconsciously through their morning rituals. The cheap, light cabinets banging, the harried calls to do an errand after work. A frustrated curse and a slam when the stove doesn't light. Danita sleeps, hugging his pillow.

  I'll do this one last time. I lay next to mother, tenderly, reverently. Lay my head on her sharp shoulder. Close my eyes to captivate the moment through my senses. Hug her from the side. Kiss her cheek. The very last time.

  Alone. A lone.

  My heart weakens, caves in.

  I'm where nothing echoes or throbs.

  I want to combust into nothing here, nothing ever more. Zero.

  WIGGLED AND PULLED

  I don't know what grief is. I only know about numbness, walking through life as if I were in a film about myself. Not me actually living, feeling and animating my life. Just a role. My perceptions lay inert. I'm blurred and I wonder if the shock of seeing mother's body at work, on my table, would even wake me.

  I overheard a conversation today as I walked to Jamie's.

  A man said, I like to manipulate people. It's a game of strategy to me.

  A woman replied, well, I guess if that's how you are...

  Of course, it's all for work.

  Yeah, but it's also how you are if you do that.

  It's just so no one can fuck with me.

  Where did you learn that? Did your parents teach you to do that?

  Their masks hid their faces, their words and voices leapt out at me.

  Yesterday, I overheard this one on the way to work.

 
; A woman said, I think the dead fly out of their bodies, live in this world as ghosts.

  Another woman said, I think it's just game over.

  Game over? Nothing else?

  Nope. You're just in the ground with your body. Lights out.

  I just can't accept that.

  That's because you're incapable of accepting the truth.

  Silence, then... maybe the truth isn't only in what you can see and touch.

  And last week.

  A woman said, my life's supposed to be completely different next year.

  Another woman asked, what else did he say?

  Basically, that all my dreams would come true. He knew things...

  I wonder if the things that happen in our future are things we already know subconsciously.

  Then is it my dreams forming the future or is it predestined ahead of time?

  I'm unporous, unfeeling. A nothing who observes dispassionately, without intuition or ponderance. The extra senses have left. Is this how the dead exist in the afterlife? I wish I could be haunted. That would prove I'm alive, inhabit my pulse.

  It's time. I might break. The grief begins, overtakes, twisting and turning. I shake, unsafe, a slit ready to spill. Jamie doesn't know what to do. His voice cracks. An aching, longing tunnels through me to the outside. All the mining gone, void of hidden stars, only an unquenchable dark snaking, bending me to its will, its spiraled snail of memory.

  All the tears that can't enunciate, all the howling deaf tones of sorrow storming through me.

  Her drawers are sparse, full of thread-bare clothing and mementos from the life before. A small, cotton satchel filled with cheap, greened rings and pendants. The indentations embedded with crud. Her old, yellowed photo logger with all our family photos. I flip through them and show Danita and Jamie as the pixels flash memories on the screen.

  The one of me when I was four with my head cocked to the side in charming fashion, my straight hair matted to my sweaty head, my belly full of summer food. The sky saturated blue behind me.

  Another of a young mother and father in front of our home, wearing shiny party garb for a costume party, with big, clean smiles, beautiful, thick hair and lower hairlines that haven't begun to recede.

  Me on my first day of school, anxious and worried, eyes squinting into the camera. Puddles of iridescent rain around me like dark jewels.

  Father in his smart business clothing, holding a shining award in our living room. Proud and puffed like a sanguine penguin.

  Mother smiling into the camera when she was young and beautiful, without a care in the world. Sparkling and warm, without hurt or a self-protective shield. We were all like that at one time or another, even if only as a child.

  It's a strange sensation to know she's no longer here. That she was here recently, and now no longer, just like that. She will never regale us with stories and musings and laughter. She was the one who grew me, tended to me. Filled me with love. The one who shepherded me into life, through a dark canal and towards the light. I have no such history with any other. I'm fine some moments, I go through my day as usual. Then out of the blue a deep sorrow will wave through me, and tears will swim into. A salted, watercolor hallucination of the past will flash before my eyes and linger, slothful and slow to leave. I'm helpless and hostage. We remember so many things.

  I find it laying at the very bottom, flimsy, old and yellowed. Obviously thumbed through many times. The notebook says “Geneva” on the inside cover, my grandmother. It's some sort of ancient canon sussed with the universe's murmurs. A book of wisdom written in my grandmother's hand; square-ish with rounded corners, inelegant, rough, like toy building blocks... like children's teeth, wiggled and pulled, laid carefully on the page in rows.

  LESSON NO. 1

  I stand behind a security or police officer of some kind, he's dressed in black military gear. The line moves slowly. His gun hangs off his thickened waist. He's all bulk, some of it muscle and fat, the rest protective gear under his sweater. He has chubby, ruddy cheeks, which seem either charming or brutish. When it's his turn, the cashier moves and scans his large order slower than usual. The plaits of her golden-brown braided hair fall past the hips and her old, green flower-patterned dress hangs long and loose over her pants giving the impression of a tall, thin wildflower. Worn and sad at having been picked.

  “Better watch out for that fish, parasites are really dangerous. I hate them,” She says as she scans his seafood.

  He just stares.

  “They embed in the host and try to take over. It's evil. Do you know anything about them? Or any operations to uncover them?” Her words are direct, but her demeanor and eye contact are passive as she sets the tripwire.

  He's silent, measuring her up and says, “I know a little bit.”

  She's piqued, looks him in the eye, then down at her slow-moving hands. “Oh? Is that something you'd be interested in sharing? I'm trying to gather info on it.” Her diction gentle and quiet.

  He watches her move his food across the landing strip. He finally says, “I'm not sure you should be interested. They're dangerous.” Stoic and calm.

  “Oh well... I just want to know. Be educated. There's nothing I can do about them, I just want to know which I can avoid. I don't want to be hurt... or caught... by parasites.”

  He looks her over, sees her fading beauty, let's it in. All her tired grace. Her naturalness, her willowy quality, how it stands out strange against the backdrop of the store's commercialism. His body language changes from impenetrable militia to relaxed, as if he got home and took off his gear, stepped out of his role and became himself. He says quietly with a sympathetic look, “You don't want to know. Believe me. I wouldn't do that to you. Just avoid them altogether.”

  She is stunned speechless. Touched somehow because he was seen as “the other” and “the other” showed he had a heart.

  The conversation ends and all is quiet as she bags the groceries and closes the transaction. He reaches for his last bag and they exchange one final, brief look that speaks volumes about humility and fear, the humanity in most of us.

  I pretend to be lost in my phone and thoughts during the exchange. The distractions in the store, the crowds, noise, music, bustle, and colorful, plastic displays provide a buffer. They can't sense my interest, it bounces off every artifice around us. I realize they're talking oblique about Operation Parasite. A rumor Jamie told me about, something he learned from a friend of a friend. That the government has infiltrated various fringe social justice groups and incited violence and mayhem against the government so the police can arrest and imprison them. Stamp out alternative thought and advocacy. Lock them away for life or until their initiative and passion have been sapped.

  There are eyes everywhere. Civilians study each other. They also observe the government and the government watches back. Someone tries to crossover, but they are pushed back for their own safety before anyone can notice.

  Lessons for life. Under grandmother's name.

  I read to Danita every night from the notebook. He absorbs it readily, the vapor of the words filling him and billowing in his childish thoughts the way smoke fills a closed glass chamber, drifting circular, always ribboning upwards. He wants to hear the lessons over and over. This is his book of fairy tales, and like all fairy tales they inform the subconscious about life, make imprints on your sandy neurology about graveled pitfalls and golden rewards. The footsteps to follow or not follow.

  Lesson #1:

  Be yourself. Accept yourself.

  Don't reach beyond yourself, just be yourself.

  Don't be your ego or an image concocted by something outside of yourself. Don't fight who you are or hide from yourself. In a world full of media messaging and images, separate what is actually you and an influence from outside of yourself. Separate who you were born as from the cravings of the ego. Ego wants recognition and to be above others. Your true self is just happy being yourself without recognition, attention and status.

 
; Be honest with yourself about who you are. Search within and accept yourself.

  Being yourself allows you to develop relationships based on truth, on who you really are. Relationships based on who you are not will either be short-lived or unsupportive during times of crisis. Things will be fine when things are going well, but when a crisis hits and you need real support, you won't find it.

  Being yourself with others doesn't mean allowing yourself to be mean or negative. It means accepting who you are while not harming others. It means showing who you are without shame and without harm to yourself and others.

  There's a fine line between teaching your child the best way to live and trying to make them be like you. Your child is a unique individual, let them be who they are, even if it's different from you or your family. Teach and guide them about the world, ethics, how to handle finances and education, how to build confidence and self-worth, how to find the right partner, how to have a good work ethic. But do not try to change who they are at their core. Find a way to accept and build on your child's personality and strengths. Let your child blossom into the person they were meant to be while teaching them how to live successfully in the world.