Age of Blight

by Kristine Ong Muslim

  By the time Dominic was eating dinner, the fingers were twitching for the first time, feeling the air of the small fenced backyard that was silent in the stifling late-summer heat. The fingers were fully exposed, the wrist visible.

  The first thing that Dominic did a few minutes after waking up was to check up on the fingers in the backyard. Sensing Dominic, the thing stirred—no, no, waved—as it was visible to the elbow now. Dominic, who remained curious because fear was still far off, grasped the hand sprouting from the ground. That was when he noticed that the hand was exactly as big as his own. And upon closer inspection, he could say for sure that it was a duplicate of his left hand—complete with the scab from a scratch he sustained when he hit the pavement while learning to balance a bicycle. “What are you?” he muttered.

  So, for days turning to weeks—while the other Dominic grew in the backyard—six-year-old, real-life Dominic went through his usual dealings with the adults in his household. There’s his mother repeatedly promising to see what had become of the fingernail clippings and then forgetting what she promised afterward, what with the bills coming in at the end of the month and the office politics with her new supervisor at Station Tower Mutual. And Nancy, the burned-out and exhausted Aunt Nancy, who worked night shifts as a part-time nurse while studying for med school, crashed out on the couch every afternoon, snoring, snoring this life away—this suburban life with so much to do and so much to become. Outside real-life Dominic’s little house, beyond the small backyard where fingernail clippings could grow into human beings, people frittered away too, their life stories being read both as allegories and as cautionary tales. Everywhere, the dirty rooms of unaired small homes, the porches growing rickety with the trampings of the desperate.

  School would start next month, and Dominic hoped that the other Dominic in the backyard would hurry up and finish growing. He was excited and scared, not knowing what the other Dominic wanted (because of course, the Other would want something, for if there is one thing a six-year-old knows, it’s that there is nothing that exists without wanting). The not-knowing gnawed at the real-life Dominic. He wished that the other Dominic would talk. Upper torso visible now, the other Dominic had yet to open his eyes, although his hands would twitch, would respond to touch, would grasp back when clutched. The signs of life of this Other were all there—steady pulse, slow intakes of breath, the sheen of sweat on the forehead, the occasional twitching.

  Once, Dominic’s mother had gone to the backyard to replace the bottom of the barbecue grill, which was propped right next to the spot where the Other was slowly emerging. Holding his breath with anticipation, or possibly even pride for the Other he had brought into the world, Dominic asked his mother if she had seen the other Dominic.

  “The what?” she probed. “What are you talking about?”

  “The other Dominic, the one who grew out of my fingernail clippings. I’ve been telling you about him for weeks now.”

  “Oh,” she said, uneasiness sinking into her voice. “Well, I haven’t seen anything. Do you mean the mound of soil near the grill? Have you been digging around in that dirt all this time?”

  “You mean you didn’t see the other me?”

  “No, honey, I didn’t. Are you feeling okay?”

  “Yes, yes, I’m fine,” Dominic said, weighing the possibility that his mother’s inattention was the reason for her not noticing what was so clearly growing in the ground. But it was a small yard, he thought, and the grill was just a few feet away from the area where his double was situated. Perhaps the reason nobody else could see the Other was that it was rightfully his. That night he mulled over the incident in bed, and when his thoughts strayed into deducing what his Other wanted, he finally began to grow afraid. When at last it was morning and it was time to check up again on the Other’s progress, Dominic saw that his double was completely exposed down to the knees. The Other’s eyes were still closed, the posture sentinel-like, feigning inattention. For the first time, Dominic felt very alone in all of this.

  Later that day, he lured the barely-awake Nancy to the backyard by faking an emergency. Dominic positioned himself right next to the Other and then screamed as hard as he could. Nancy, scrambling out of her stupor in the couch and steadying herself by holding on to the screen door that led out to the small, fenced backyard, found Dominic with an expectant expression on his face.

  “Oh God, Dominic! You gave me quite a scare there,” she said. “I thought you were hurt.”

  “Don’t you see him, Aunt Nancy?”

  “What, what?”

  “Him?”

  “Who? What are you talking about?”

  That was when Dominic realized the Other was definitely not visible to other people. “Nah, I’m just, I’m just kidding,” he mumbled. “Sorry, sorry. It was a spider—it’s gone now.”

  “Okay,” Nancy said. She was vaguely aware of the boy hiding something from her, but she was too tired and sleepy to protest. She made a mental note to talk to his mother when she got home tonight. “I’ll be in the living room if you need anything.”

  “Sure, Aunt Nancy.” He glanced at the Other next to him, the silent, unmoving one, the invisible one who was still anchored to the ground. When Nancy retreated back to the house, Dominic once again marveled at his double’s resemblance to him. How he wished it would say something.

  That night, Dominic’s mother carefully treaded around the subject of her son’s imaginary playmate. Gently, she tried to make him understand the absurdity of his fingernails growing into another Dominic. “Now, do you want to know why your Aunt Nancy and I can’t see it? It’s because it’s not real.”

  “Then how come I can see it? I can touch it. Come, let me show you.”

  “No,” she tried to be firm, not wanting to encourage him, and recognizing the adult world’s hypocrisy at the same time. Kids weren’t expected to question the existence of Santa Claus. “Finish your dinner and then wash up. Let’s read something tonight.”

  Dominic brightened up instantly with the prospect of a bedtime story. It was the last time his mother would see her six-year-old smile like that.

  At eight the next morning he remembered to check up on his double’s progress in the backyard. As he neared the kitchen screen door that opened out to the backyard, he heard Aunt Nancy happily talking on the phone, the approaching ice cream truck’s melodic tones, the muffled swish of shrubbery whose tops were being trimmed by the neighbor’s hedge cutters.

  The scene did not register at first, but when it did, Dominic was overcome with awe. His double was completely free of the earth, standing on the loose soil that once held him back. The ground underneath his feet was stomped flat. He wore exactly what the real-life Dominic wore—a yellow cotton T-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms. And the eyes, those same Dominic eyes, were open. When at last Dominic met his double’s gaze, he felt a strong yet painless tug, as if he were a prone weight being forcibly lifted, and a flood of warmth along the extremities. Then there was a momentary blur. Dominic found himself standing on the spot where he first buried his fingernail clippings. He couldn’t move. Soil covered his feet up to the ankles. What was once curiosity quickly turned to panic. Then later fear, the only real fear Dominic would ever have the chance to know, and finally, understanding. The last thing Dominic saw before his eyes grew heavy and he had to close them was the back of his double’s yellow T-shirt heading to the kitchen screen door. The Other entered his house where his Aunt Nancy was still happily talking on the phone, the house around which he last heard the ice cream truck’s melodic tones fading as the vehicle neared the bend and the muffled swish of shrubbery whose tops were being trimmed by the neighbor’s hedge cutters.

  Somewhere on this continent, someone—possibly another child, perhaps ten-year-old Evelyn of 941 Willard Street, Bardenstan—would attempt and succeed at last in trimming her bangs with a blunt pair of scissors designed for cutting paper. The fact that she botched her first hair cut did not matter. What was significant w
as what she did afterward. Evelyn buried the hair in the backyard and something, someone, grew out of it.

  III. INSTEAD OF HUMAN

  There’s No Relief as Wondrous as Seeing Yourself Intact

  When at last the initial wave of the much-awaited extinction event finally struck, it did so without causing much physical pain. And what lingered in its wake was something akin to catharsis. Because who ever said catharsis has to be pleasant?

  As for you and the other children, understand that what happened to Carlos last night can happen to anyone. So this morning, the fear is palpable. You can see it in everyone’s eyes, although they have long mastered how to control the telltale tics associated with dread. Everyone sits quietly at first, huddled in small groups and taking all the corner seats. The outcasts and the ones who have yet to develop social skills have no choice but to occupy the armchairs at the center of the room.

  The headmaster takes the stand and explains in his usual monotone everything he knows—or what little he knows—about the Empty. “I’m sure you’ve all heard about Carlos,” he says. “The Empty started to eat away at his left ear last night. This resulted in partial hearing loss. As you all know, the Empty spreads like wild fire when it begins in the head. So in a few hours, only the right portion of Carlos’ face was visible. His parents informed me that he finally disappeared around three a.m.”

  You expect the headmaster to offer comforting words. Instead, you hear him say, “It’s just his time, I think. The Empty will get us all in the end and we can’t do anything about it, unless something else kills us first.”

  You’re pretty sure the headmaster will soon regret what he just said. But it isn’t so bad now, is it? Acknowledging that the Empty will get to just about everyone—friend and enemy, family and stranger—makes it a perfect equalizer. You’ve long since stopped wondering about the Empty, believing that you can just as easily end up dying another way before it can get to you.

  Some of the children drum their fingers against their desks, while some fidget in their seats, all of them busily feigning either impatience or nonchalance to hide their fear. Or is it boredom? At the center of the room, the outcasts and the ones who have yet to develop social skills clutch their book bags close to their chests—the currently acceptable norm for alleviating anxiety in a public setting. The headmaster dismisses everyone and then tells his star pupils, the ones who clinched the highest scores in the obedience exam, to take care on their way home.

  As usual, you head straight home after school and arrive just in time for the evening news, whose omissions are far more telling than the information being disclosed. On television, you watch a man from Bardenstan, his disbelief-turned-anguish unmistakable as he recounts how the Empty got him while he was waiting for his turn to be laid off outside his boss’ office. He says, “I got this, uh, good severance package, but this Empty, oh god, it’s just not fair. It has spread to my belly button. I have a hole in my frigging stomach now. And yes, I don’t feel a thing, but I can make out my gut, a part of my—I don’t know that part of me, that organ that appears yellowish—this is so wrong. All I know is the doctors say I’m going to be really prone to infection. They say I have one, two years tops until, you know, I finally disappear. This just isn’t fair. Nothing is.”

  You agree with the last thing that the man from Bardenstan said, and you would have paused to think about it had you not been distracted by a ludicrous diaper ad that replaced the man’s haunting face on the screen. You forget your desire to mull over the sentiments of the man from Bardenstan. For the next two hours, you watch on television how the citizens of this country scramble to get their affairs in order.

  Switching from one television channel to another, you become suddenly aware of an itch on your left shoulder. Alarmed, you sit up. Because you are expecting the worst, you rush toward the bathroom to inspect yourself in the mirror. There’s no relief as wondrous as seeing yourself intact. There’s no Empty gnawing quietly, much like the natural ravages of your body. At least for now, you are safe.

  Pet

  When I heard the familiar yapping followed by scratching against the doggie door which I had hammered shut days ago, I realized that it was back, and it wanted to enter the house.

  I wrinkled my nose as I approached the back door. That smell was something I could never quite wash off its fur during the days I had no choice but to bathe it. It had gotten stronger now—that stench of decaying carcass.

  I let it loose in the wild five days ago, hoping that it would not find its way back to us. I overfed it before I left it by the side of the road near the woodland area in Bardenstan. It was too dazed, too sated with its meal of artificial celery stalks and meat to make chase when I slammed the car door and sped away from its stunted form.

  It used to walk upright before we adopted it from the shelter. Government regulation—each family had to own one. Now it crawled on all fours, the posture of the submissive, after three months of torture.

  My father beat it twice a day with a stick for no good reason but because he felt like it. My little brother once lit some fireworks tied to its tail. That reduced its tail to shreds and made it yelp in pain. As usual, the tail grew back two days later. A long time ago when men were still gullible, it might have been misconstrued as a creature of myth, a creature that was sacred. These days, we all took it for what it was—a creature to quench our appetite to maim other people.

  I remember reading that the amount of pain we inflict on others shows how much we hate ourselves. Sometimes, it scares me to admit that it might be true.

  My little brother killed himself last month. He slit his throat using the same cutter he used to carve Chief, his wooden toy Indian. As for my father, I saw him cry just once after the funeral. Before the week was over, he died in what I wanted to believe was a freak car accident, going 98 head on into a concrete embankment. The neighbors brought enough casseroles to feed me for a year. And what to do with the leftovers distracted me from the onset of grief.

  Sliding the kitchen curtain, the vinyl one with painted-on green apples, I tiptoed by the sink and took a peek outside. It had grown emaciated. Its fur was matted with dirt. And it stank—I could smell it even from here—the familiar odor of deprivation, hopelessness, and death. It nuzzled the doggie door, hoping it would someday open. I wished I had the stomach to kill it. I hated its lack of will to fight, its unending devotion to the people who could never love it back.

  I returned to my accustomed place on the couch and watched television all day. There was an old cartoon showing the interior of a castle spire where black birds desperately tried to escape through the narrow windows. The tar man had awakened, and he ruffled the feathers on the black birds baked into the king’s pie. The birds shrieked when cornered. The evening news prominently featured the broiling Pacific storm. There were also reports about a volcano that was predicted to explode in Eastern Europe, about the black market that brimmed with forgeries of docile wives to replace nagging ones, about the new religion worshipping a radioactive potato which swept Nebraska into a frenzy. The news went on and on, lulling me to sleep.

  The creature returned at the same time the next day. Its smell was not as strong as before. The sun must have done something to it, kind of disinfected it. When I spied it from the kitchen window, I noticed that its hair had receded. It was also standing upright. A slight limp and a bit of wobble on the left leg, but other than that, it now walked like a human. I half-expected it to say hello. I did not know what to make of its transformation. It must have wanted so much to be home and be accepted that it willed itself to change into something it wasn’t.

  I did not know why I suddenly felt lonely when it ambled away and disappeared behind the bushes—as if something had been taken away from me.

  Later that night, I woke up, crawled to the fridge, and wolfed two of the casseroles my neighbor brought for me. It felt natural to set the food on the floor, to use my bare hands to cram food inside my mouth, to lick clean the s
ides of the glass tray, to soil myself when I was too full to move. I could not understand what was happening to me. Maybe, things were supposed to end this way. I dozed off on the tiled floor. My fur kept me warm. I don’t know—I must have dreamed about strolling on the beach. I remembered that it was cordoned off by the military a long time ago. I’m not sure, I could be wrong.

  It came back the morning of the next day. I expected it to push through the doggie door, which I had finally unlocked, but instead it turned the knob on the front door.

  Oh, how it knew its way around the house! It switched on the television, started the percolator, and hummed to itself while it chopped vegetables, real ones, on the countertop. I liked how its footsteps echoed as it sauntered from room to room. It looked like it knew what it was doing. I’ve got my nose pressed against the floor, sniffing the underside of the couch after it shooed me away, swatting me with yesterday’s newspaper. But that was it. It did not do anything else to hurt me.

  Zombie Sister

  Every family had one.

  So, when my sister came back from the dead, we accepted her. When she came downstairs for breakfast, we acted as if everything was normal. She smelled really bad—you know how human bodies can stink when they begin to decay after two days in room temperature. The interior walls of the house seemed to tremble in disgust, offended by my sister’s suffocating sweet-sickly stench. We observed from the corner of our eyes how she sloppily buttered her toast and crammed it inside her mouth. How was she going to digest it?

  “You don’t have to pretend to be reading, Beth,” I told her. “It’s been two days. The worms are supposed to come out of your eyes pretty soon. I don’t think you can still see. I mean, tell me, can you still see?”