by P. K. Tyler
The memory, though pleasant, only added to my dread. Mexican jumping beans were powered by moth larva—maggots—and the novelties my grandmother had given me were the size of my pinky fingernail. These ruby pods, the one that twitched again, were half the size of my fist. My mind traversed images of giant insects and worms.
Again the pod twitched, and again I jumped back. This time, the movement continued, tremors and shakes in the way an egg becomes alive before a hatchling emerges. I searched the table for something to take in hand, something to smash the lantern or whatever it was about to reveal. There was nothing. And then the sides of the lantern opened to reveal a tiny child.
* * *
The child was at first still, but soon spread its arms wide and opened its mouth in a yawn, and then the wee naked being opened its eyes. Pure blue. It appeared to be a baby, with chubby cheeks, and a curl on top of its large head, but those big eyes made the creature look more kewpie doll than cherub. The child looked in my direction and gave me a squeaky, “Hello.”
I was in a bit of a shock. One is not prepared for the appearance of a child from a plant, much less a speaking child. I stared back, mouth agape.
“I’m hungry,” the child said. “Can you feed me?”
I nodded. What else was I to do to such a civil question?
With some hesitation, I asked, “What would you like?”
“Can you feed me?” the child repeated. “Please?”
I went to the refrigerator. Babies eat milk I thought, though not cow’s milk, but then the child in the blossom was merely the resemblance of an infant human.
Instinctively I removed a glass from the cupboard, stared at it for several seconds, and then set it on the counter and opened the drawer where the sandwich bags were stored. I poured a few spoonfuls of milk into the bag, tied a knot, and then searched the counter for a needle I had seen. I found it in a drawer of the opposite counter, below where I keep the single malt scotch. I quaffed a throat load of whiskey, poked a hole in the milk bag with the needle, and went back to the table.
I handed the makeshift milk satchel to the child who happily suckled from the small opening.
Whiskey bottle in hand, I sat back to watch the child feed.
He drank and so did I. Now when I say he, I do not mean that the child was a boy. There appeared to be no genitalia, again like a kewpie. I did not need to peek or pry, he was right there in front of me as naked as the moment the pod opened up. But I say ‘he’ because the squeak of his voice was coarse, hinting toward that of a boy. But I could be wrong altogether as this was my first and only experience with a being of such type.
When he, the child, was finished, he thanked me for the milk and I took the satchel away. “I was sleeping,” he said as if he was a bit surprised by the information. “For the longest time.”
I nodded as I had before, not quite ready to enter into conversation with the little person.
“I was dreaming,” he added.
I offered him a tight-lipped smile.
“Can I tell you my dream?” he asked.
“Please do,” I said, more out of politeness than curiosity, but being a writer and an eater of all tales told, my ears immediately perked.
“I dreamt that I lived on the banks of a mighty river, in the crown of a small willowy tree. There were many of us there, many like me, dangling down her branches. And we were happy because the river was fertile and nurtured us in our tree and it was so beautiful there by the flowing waters and we were there for the longest time, warmed by the sun and cooled by the soft breeze of our friend the South Wind.”
The child continued on. He told of how the inhabitants of the tree first discovered the stars of the heavens, he spoke of visitors to the tree, towering beasts that would gather at the banks of the river to drink and cool in the waters, and of the time the Gnat Queen brought her biting swarm to overtake the tree for her own domain. His story went on for quite some time, detailing the struggle of his kin, of the great battle that ensued and how all was near lost when their friend the South Wind rescued them by blowing the swarm of biting gnats away. I was so taken that I had forgotten that the tale was coming from this littlest of beings in the least of size, this least child, or that the least child had arrived in a plant.
After the child finished speaking of the war with the Gnat Queen, he yawned. “I’m so tired,” he said. With that, the petals of the pod closed around him, leaving me alone at the table. He had left as quickly as he had arrived. I had not even asked the child his name. I thought of tapping on the pod, knocking on his door, but hesitated.
His words continued to run through my head and the place in my mind that should have been caught up with the discovery of the child was replaced with the imagery of his story. I set my fingertips to hover above my keyboard and waited, in the same way one would wait for a moving train to slow enough to be boarded. They quivered in anticipation and, when I circled back around to his first words, my fingers began to vigorously hammer against the keys as not to miss a single one. For the next few hours, I typed feverishly. The story the least child spoke of shattered the floodgate timber that had been holding me back. I captured his story, interpreted it, adapted it, added my own invention as to why the Gnat Queen brought her forces and the heroism of his others to prevail.
I did not hear the door open or my wife walk in. “You’re still at it,” she said. Her eyes veered to the whiskey bottle on the table, a tinge of sour in their corners. “Writing went well today?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Yes, it did.”
* * *
I did not tell my wife of the child. She was pleased I had written. I was pleased too. We had dinner. An early evening. We made love.
In the morning, I was up early, invigorated to begin another writing session. I helped my wife off to work and took my place at the kitchen table. The Japanese lantern was still on the sill next to my seat, appearing no different than when my wife had first placed it there.
For a quick second, I wondered if I had imagined the events of the day before—any rational person would have questioned them, but I was so enamored with the least child that the thought had not even crossed my mind. Neither had I bothered to mention of the visitor to my wife. It was then I was struck with the realization that I may be delusional. It had not occurred to me before to question my sanity. I suppose one does not necessarily know when they are crazy. One day you are sane, and the next day you believe you are sane, except you are not. Sanity, if illusive, is fragile. There was more light that day than the days before, and the amber glow that shone through the still pod compounded my belief that I had indeed lost it altogether.
Then, as unannounced as the day before, there was a twitch. A small one, followed in a moment by another, and then a tremor. A wave of elation washed over me and I felt a quiver of my own run down my spine. I went to the refrigerator to prepare another satchel and returned in time for the alien child to awake.
He did not need to ask me for his meal. I readily handed it to him and he fed. When he was finished he said, “Hello.”
“Hello,” I responded, far more at ease than the day before. “Did you sleep well?”
“Why yes.”
“Did you dream?”
“I did.”
“Will you tell me your dream?”
“If you like. Where was I?”
“Your friend the South Wind blew away the Gnat Queen’s biting horde.”
“Swarm,” corrected the child. I had changed the swarm to a horde in my story.
“Yes. Swarm. Please, tell me more.”
“All was good for some time. Except the South Wind, who first was kind, became proud for saving our home and with his pride he grew stronger, and that strength brought with it a mean contempt. He was angry that we were not appreciative enough of his grandeur. He was jealous of the beauty of our willowy tree, of our glowing homes, and rather than cool and caress her, he tore at her roots and branches until the banks had eroded away and our w
illowy tree was in danger of collapsing into the mighty river waters that fed us. It was a sad time and we thought we were doomed, that the end had come.”
The child paused, smiled, and glanced up and out the glass of the window toward the shining sun. “But one day a kind lady came walking by, a Queen of Heaven, and saved us from the wicked South Wind. She took our willowy tree in her hand and brought all of us to her sanctuary and planted our tree in the most incredible garden, with high walls to shield and protect us from the South Wind. The Queen of Heaven tended to our willowy tree most carefully, mending her roots and our branches, strengthening them, helping the willow to grow big. And it was grand. There were many of us there, many like me that lived in the ceiling of the sky, and then others.”
“Others?” I asked.
“Down in the roots lived a large serpent, and in the middle of the massive trunk, between the heavens and Earth, our mother joined us and made a house.”
“Your mother?”
“Yes, our mother. Our mother joined us in the garden in heaven, our willowy tree had grown so that there was plenty of room for her to build her house.”
Again the wee one went on talking about life in the tree until he became tired and, again, when he finished, he unceremoniously yawned and tucked himself back into his pod.
I made his words my own.
* * *
On the third day, I had his meal ready for him when he woke. I was eager to hear more of his tale, and he did not disappoint.
“One day, the Queen of Heaven entered her sanctuary to visit the tree. She was not pleased to find the large serpent living below the roots. She began to weep, and her tears were like rain. There was nothing our tree or mother could do to calm her. When my mother spoke, the Queen of Heaven wept harder. She cried day and night, causing the rivers to rise above their banks and flood the earth. No one was angry below because the Queen of Heaven was loved. Rather, a great hero with a long flowing blonde mane came to her rescue. But she did not need a rescue. The large serpent swore he would do no harm. The hero with the long blonde hair slew the serpent in the roots and, by doing so, killed our willowy tree. He destroyed two innocents that day. Seeing there was nothing we could do to save our tree, my mother tore down her house and fled with her young to the mountains below. That is how we came to return to the earth. The hero and his men cut down our tree and presented it to the Queen of Heaven for her chair and couch. And, not satisfied with their destruction, set out to pursue our mother and us on a grand chase.”
As the child told of these events, his voice was saddened. He spoke of falling through the sky to reach the mountains below, how their mother roamed, the perils they faced, and how she often hid them from the hero not far behind. And again he became tired and closed his pod.
* * *
I did not sleep much that night. There was so much to make out of what the child had told me. My writings the day before had already embellished the story of the sanctuary and the Queen of Heaven; the addition of a hero was more than I could have hoped for, a romantic twist. I was up until the early hours adding chapter upon chapter. The story was practically writing itself, I thought. But that was not true. It was not writing itself. It was a retelling of his tale. A pang of guilt shot through me. I shirked it off. The late hours often affect me so. My story was a retelling, not plagiarism, I had made the tale my own. Besides, no one knew of him. That was a dark thought. If it was not plagiarism, why would it matter? I could credit him.
I shook my head to chase the crazy idea away. There was no possibility of crediting him. To admit that my muse was… I closed my laptop and headed for bed.
* * *
The next day, I slept late. Out of kindness my wife did not wake me, so by the time my eyes opened, the apartment was filled with the rays of the midmorning sun. For having worked so late into the night, I felt incredibly refreshed. In fact, I was invigorated in a way that I could not quite remember. Not a muscle felt sluggish, and I easily lifted myself from my bed in one quick fluid motion and put myself straight into the shower. I was singing. From the shower into my clothes, into the kitchen. On the counter, I found a bowl of fresh cut fruit under plastic wrap with a small yellow Post-It note stuck on top. On the note was in black Sharpie was the shape of a heart and three exclamation points. Next to the fruit was a tall glass of coffee, the milk already added, and, though it had cooled while I slept, the creamy, tepid elixir could not have tasted any better. The world was no longer sad. I went to the table, fruit in hand, tossed the top of my laptop up and looked to the side.
The least child, the Japanese lantern, was gone.
* * *
The first thing I did was search our apartment. With all of the light of the new sunny day, I thought that maybe my lovely wife had moved the lantern to a new window sill. But she had not. Then I thought of the trash. If she had disposed of the plant, she would have had to deposit it down the waste chute to the automatic compactor. The thought was unbearably troublesome.
I decided to call her at the shop to resolve the issue.
She answered in her usual delightful voice. I realized immediately the awkwardness of my call, so I was direct but upbeat. “The plant’s gone,” I said. “Did you throw it out?”
I nervously awaited her answer, my stomach tightening.
“No, of course not.”
“Well,” I said. “It’s just that… the lantern was inspiring my story.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were that attached to it. I wouldn’t have taken it to the shop.”
My heart began to race. The plant was all right, that was a good thing. But how long before the petals rolled back to reveal the little child inside. “Would you mind if I come get it?”
“Um. You can’t.”
“What does that mean?”
“I brought it back to the shop because a man came in yesterday asking for Japanese lanterns. I guess he’s buying them up all over the city. He paid a lot for it.”
“Do you have his number?”
“No. He said he’d be back this morning and he was. You know, it’s funny. He had the longest blonde hair. You just don’t see that many men with hair like that.”
About the Author
Daniel Arthur Smith is the author of the international bestsellers HUGH HOWEY LIVES, THE CATHARI TREASURE, THE SOMALI DECEPTION, and a few other novels and short stories.
He was raised in Michigan and graduated from Western Michigan University where he studied philosophy, with focus on cognitive science, meta-physics, and comparative religion. He began his career as a bartender, barista, poetry house proprietor, teacher, and then became a technologist and futurist for the Fortune 100 across the Americas and Europe.
Daniel has traveled to over 300 cities in 22 countries, residing in Los Angeles, Kalamazoo, Prague, Crete, and now writes in Manhattan where he lives with his wife and young sons.
For more information, visit
www.danielarthursmith.com
Consciousness
by Zig Zag Claybourne
Summary: When even gods, holy men, and fantastical beings have existential crises of hope, love, and friendship, there is always the bearable brightness of tea.
Internally: Tuesday
The Jackalope drank slowly; flavor was never a thing to hurry along. The blend of dried berries and ginger reminded it of a walk it had taken some ancient or recent summer ago. Across the room, the young man spoke. Too loudly for the human ears in the room; definitely too loudly for the Jackalope's, whose ear tips twitched with each word.
"As the Buddha," said the slender fellow, "I do not believe in the Jackalope. He is a fancy, a piece of fluff—" the left ear twitched extra at the low insult directed at its round tail.
"That you," said an even younger monk, "in your wisdom deny."
"That I, in my wisdom, deny," said the Buddha, pointedly catching the Jackalope's eye. "And," said the Buddha loudly, having had several drinks more potent than tea not long before enter
ing the home of Wei Yu Hei, "I find this tea weak, uninspired, and reflecting badly on character."
Please, not again, thought the Jackalope.
"I shall find spirits," said Buddha.
The Jackalope closed its eyes, drew curlicues of fragrant steam deep into its wet nostrils, and allowed the exhalation to be soothing as Buddha’s chair scraped outward.
The Buddha stood without seeing anyone else in the room. He walked stiffly toward the door.
The Jackalope, ignoring all in the room but the steam, finished its tea. It made a habit of noting the nearest drinking establishments wherever they traveled. It would take the Buddha a fair amount of time on foot to reach the one near the village's entrance. The Jackalope, being much faster, had all the time in the world.
Externally: Night
"As the Buddha," the Buddha said, "I find your wife's ass divine and worthy of introspection." By then, the young man had already offended enough people to have drawn a circle outside the tavern. One man lay on the ground with a broken clavicle, for which the Buddha would cry later. Violence was abhorrent.
The Jackalope was thoroughly tired of the Buddha's tears.
The circle closed a few steps. Weapons had been drawn. Focused as they were on the Buddha, the Jackalope's huge paw, appearing as out of nowhere when really it was merely a matter of practice and silence, slammed into the back of one of the offended, knocking the man several feet forward and frightening the man beside him. Two frightened men, driven to opposite extremes by fear, jumped on the Jackalope's back and pounded but only managed to rain ineffective blows against a weathered leather vest. It shook them off easily, picked the largest man in the circle, lifted him, then shook the body like a rag doll until the man screamed for help. The other men accepted this lesson. The Jackalope dropped the man and the circle scattered. The Jackalope turned to the Buddha, who was about to fling an ill-advised curse at the furry giant. The Jackalope raised a paw to its mouth for silence, knelt, felt the Buddha climb its haunches, felt the Buddha swing his way to its back to hold to the great beast's antlers, then flexed its huge furry feet and bounded off.
