The Thing
Our family has a thing. It isn't a dog exactly, or a plant, but it sits behind us at table whilst we eat, and at the end of the beds whilst we sleep. The front side has a large opening and looks rather much like a pitcher plant, and the children are often tossing morsels of food inside sequestered from their own plates, though it is uncertain what kind of food is required, or whether it even needs to eat at all. We are hesitant to call it a pet even though it follows us loyally about the house, (though nobody ever actually sees it move,) and waits diligently by the door when we go out in the evening, its long membranous flaps quivering and twitching with excitement when it hears the children approach, as the door gradually opens -
Our thing, to us, is special. What makes it special is that it belongs to us, and not to somebody else. Possession is, after all, nine-tenths of the law. It’s rather difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of our affections for the thing beyond ownership, given that the thing does nothing beyond that which I previously described. On numerous occasions I have actually been alarmed to discover the thing lurking right behind me as I turn back from the refrigerator, or close up to my nose when I open my eyes in the morning: it has this tendency to ‘pop up’ when you least expect, which can appear somewhat - malingering. Is that the correct word to use? On the other hand, I am also beginning to understand that when you love something, you do not merely love its form alone.
My husband does not waste any great affection on our thing, but instead prefers to enjoy the secondary effects it has over our family, somewhat aloof from the daily fray. He rarely discusses the subject, but I have the feeling there is something more in my husband’s reticence toward the thing: an occulted jealousy, perhaps, which he holds toward the thing and its special power to bring the family together - together, where he could not - or it may just be an innocuous mistrust for an unknown thing such as this. After all, neither of us remember where it came from, or how it came to be so loyal to us. It strikes me as more of a sentinel than a pet: always there, always alert, always watching. And though we call it ‘our thing’, it may not be guarding us for our own good.
When we had a dog in the past, it seemed obvious, (to me, anyway,) that its loyalty, its affection, its aggression, were behaviours conditioned to protect its food supply - in short, us. Of course, the children loved that dog very much, unconditionally as they say, and he would lick at the inside of their mouths day and night in mock affection as they squealed with delight. But this new thing is not a dog. This new thing is different. We don’t understand what factors condition its behaviour, or even why it is here, in our house, and why it takes care of the children so carefully.
We have noticed the thing emits a faint droning noise whenever it is left alone, and the children believe that our thing is communicating with other things elsewhere, through an ethereal, cosmic apparatus - although the children resent discussing this topic with anyone but each other, and certainly not with adults. We are simply content just to see them happy after all, and so we leave the kids to their own fancy. My husband and I are just grateful to have such a thing as this, thing which has done much to alleviate the unendurable passions, the suffering and the tension: our thing binds this family together strongly, and I should never wish to be without our thing in my most abject loneliness.
It was indeed sad and unexpected then to discover, upon returning home from the bowling alley last Thursday night, that the thing had gone. As usual, the kids gambolled up the drive, excited to be welcomed back home by the familiar thing, all quivering, who would faithfully be waiting on the other side of the door for us - and of course - making it comically awkward to get inside the door due to the thing’s bulky volume. But on Thursday last, as the door swung open, our worst fears instantly became reality. No thing. The children darted here and there, anxiously looking for it around the house; and when it was not to be found, they then commenced searching the garden, and then the wider neighbourhood, with my husband, (somewhat more enthusiastic than usual,) sluggishly in tow, and whilst they were out looking for the thing, I called up the Sheriff’s Department to ask if any thing like our thing had been reported or found. I remember that it was very difficult to make myself understood to the Sheriff, (not because he is an especially dull man, or that he could hardly be said to be very much interested in our missing thing,) but rather because I found myself unable to describe in any sensible manner the thing which we had lost. I must have sounded plum crazy.
“So, if I got this right, you’re tellin’ me it’s about three feet wide, by four feet tall, green, (but only on the outside,) and it has a large opening in the front for food, and is sort of shaped like a ‘foot detached at the ankle’. Those are your words, Ma’am. Maybe you could help me out a little here: does it answer to any name in particular, Mrs Dalloway? How do the kids call it?”
“No, it doesn’t have a name; it just seems to know when we’re talking to it, like it reads us. Maybe it’s telepathic? I have no idea. It drones at the kids. I can tell you that. It drones at the kids, but not at us. Did anybody report any thing like that this evening, Sheriff Tom? Maybe your patrol car spotted such a thing, seeping into the quiet suburb, lurking behind a pruned shrub or the garden statue of Buddha in his repose?”
“No, I’m afraid not, Ma’am. My man would have noticed something like that. Look, are there any signs of a break-in, Mrs Dalloway? Was the back door open when you got there, or any broken windows, or some such? Tampering with the door locks? We had reports of a gang operating in the area; some folk over on Lakeview Terrace Drive were burgled just last night, and they had plenty of things stolen, including a very valuable Weiner dog - a champion, they said. An’ they’re no more than a two minute drive from you. Now, I’m sorry, but I’m up to my neck in it, to tell you the truth. Did I tell you that our Xerox machine just broke down - the good one - and I got the DA’s office up my ass, and I got four officers off sick tonight - so I’m already doing everything myself down here, and I just ran out of coffee, and you know what, it’s my birthday today and I haven’t even had time for lunch, and my arthritis is playing up, and then there’s climate change: I - I - there’s just too many things Mrs D -”
The receiver suddenly went dead. Had the Sheriff hung up? Or had I rung-off, to curtail his self-indulgent whingeing? Why didn’t I care about his things, but expected him to care about mine? Because, I guess, possession is nine-tenths of the law, and he’s the goddamn Sheriff. But I hardly remember now - or it’s no longer of any importance -
The children, poor children, were extremely disconsolate after the departure of the thing. It seems nothing can bring them out from under this depression. Only that thing will do. My husband and I allowed them to believe, (at the Sheriff's initial suggestion,) that indeed their thing had been stolen by a gang of lowlife thieves - thieves who were dead jealous of the lovely thing our family had - just so that the kids would have somewhere to focus their quite considerable anger other than us. If we’d said we didn’t actually know where it had gone, (or why,) they might have got the impression it left of its own volition - and that would have been simply too much for them to bear, the poor dears. Or worse, they might have suspected my husband and I: who knows? Anyway, the girl wouldn’t understand why we couldn’t call the Sheriff about it any more, so I diligently pretended to call him every morning at nine o’clock sharp, communicating my regrets to her hopeful face with a shrug and gentle purse of my lips so as to say; ‘No, darling, not today.’ The boy, my boy just sits alone all day up on his bunk bed, and drones quietly all night long, pining for the thing: in his little mind, he must think he is communicating with it, bless him. But the girl, my girl has become unusually hostile, and hits the boy when he stops droning for whatever reason. She has also begun swearing oaths at her father just to provoke his anger, and this has led to a dangerously frosty tension between the two. Does she hold her father responsible for the loss - unconsciously, perhaps - or for some other reason she has yet to disclose? I have my own suspicions about her father, but these conjectures, my conjectures are not for the children’s ears.
Since we lost our thing, we are forever bickering and arguing in the house, and over the most trivial of things. Take for instance this morning, at breakfast: the girl, upon opening the refrigerator to discover there was no milk, and then seeing that her brother was already at table enjoying a large bowl of frosted flakes swimming to the brim in milk, quite lost her temper and in the end we had to call the Sheriff again, just to get her off of him. The Sheriff, now looking more haggard and de-motivated than usual, made it abundantly clear he did not expect to be called out to the house over every little thing, and departed with an exaggerated slam of the front door, the front tires of his cruiser spinning for a moment on the asphalt, before zooming away impressively into the still early day. My husband and I are at a loss: are we expected to solve our own problems now? Why can’t the cops just figure it out?
I am afraid that I have come to live - somewhat live - like a phantom in my own house, strenuously avoiding contact with the others, disappearing and reappearing - malingering. I slope from dark corner to dark corner just to avoid the sunlight - sunlight which I can no longer bear. Something - or someone - must be poisoning me - poisoning my life - and yet, funnily enough, I am happy to allow it to pass -
In these private moments - sacred moments - when I am alone, when my husband is at work, (which isn’t often, these days,) and the kids are up in their room, droning, I have started a new thing to keep myself occupied: I’m counting the leaves on that big beautiful Beech tree in the front yard. This is not such an easy task, because the stiff breeze we get off the lake at this time of year makes them shimmer and rustle away, their contrasting light-and-dark sides creating pleasant little glisters in the eye. So pretty. Still, I have persisted, and created my own method of writing tablature to record the relative position of each leaf to its golden bough - just as though each and every leaf was a musical note - a quaver or series of crochets indicating the swell and rise of the wind - and it is the wind, I firmly believe, that is calling me. It is the wind that is calling me out to the lake. This malingering music, sick-sweet, permeates every thing. It says, in wordless breaths:
“Come here, come to the lake, come back to me - ”
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