Tara Lago, Period 6, 4/27/23

 Tara Lago, Period 6, 4/27/23, Modern Mythology 2023 

Creativity & Fiction

Long ago, long enough that I still roamed the outside world, I found him, a furry creature, a wretched runt. I could have left him, could have eaten him even, but there was something about his emaciated body, curled up to the sky, that was defiant. And in his defiance, there was hope. 

He was daring the world to kill him, but it wouldn’t, not if that world was me. So I picked the creature up, brought him to my cave, and cradled him to my chest. I rocked him to his revival, fed him bone marrow, washed his fur, and bandaged his wounds. The one thing I did not do was sing him a song and let him hear my voice, because alas, I had none. 

In a day, his eyes fluttered open. In the next, he flashed his teeth. In another, he was wobbling on his feet. Several days later, he was running across the cave, climbing the walls, and sliding into the lake. He was taking chalky stone and stenciling in his surroundings on the rock. When his drawings occupied the lower layers of sandstone, I carried him so that he could reach the upper crevices of the cave, where he sketched his daydreams about him and me. 

And at the end of the day, he would yawn and I would rock him to sleep.

But in our subsequent tomorrows, he sulked on a rock. He splashed the water. He smeared his doodles. He looked at me. He wondered. He spoke. 

“Why?” His first word. 

Our mutual silence did not suffice any longer.

But I could only look at him back, hoping the reflection of his face in my eyes conveyed meaning.

Instead, he blinked, turned away, and crawled out of the cave. 

I never knew if he would return. The outside world was dangerous. It was my wandering that had taken out my tongue. It was my hiding that kept me safe.  Quiet was security, while a sound was a threat. When I heard a flock of birds flying, that meant a predator was close. When I heard footfalls, that meant a killer was near. But his sound was a sound I wanted to embrace because he gave me purpose, joy, a reason to be defiant.

I had to find a way to communicate with him.

So every time he would leave, I dredged up the shape of my spoken language, envisioning the geometric alignment of the consonants and syllables. 

After one of his trips, he asked me his second and third question. 

“Why are we here? Why do we stand this putrid, sinking hole?” 

His words wheezed out his throat like a petulant frog. I trembled, for his learned language razed my ears, grounded and resentful. 

My lips shook as I tried to answer. “This is our home.” 

He glared at me. 

I wiggled my claws for emphasis. “This…our home.” 

“Don’t ask? Don’t ask?!” He screamed. “You’re useless. Keep your terrible secret, if that’s all you're good for.” 

He left in a huff. 

I disappeared into the cave’s rocks. The slight glint of my tears as they streamed down my face was the single telltale sign that I was there. 

~~~~
The sun was up. Even in the dark, I could sense the circular passage of time. After a night of feeding, he should have been back by now. 

Wait. 

“Please, Mama!” 

What was that? Is it him? Why does he beckon? 

I peeked out of my cave, and I saw his silhouette hanging on a tree. 

“Mama!” He bellowed.

A cacophony of clanking, neighing, and that grounded and resentful language entrapped him. 

For the second time in our lives, I saved him. 

I shrieked, ten times as loud as his howl, and came roaring down like thunder, eyes as bright as dragonfire. I overpowered the cacophony, which faded away before they touched any fur on his head. 

He tumbled from the tree, and I caught him and I held him so tight it was crushing. I could cradle him to revival once more, but when we got to the cave, he began to crawl out of my arms and roared “The world is all pointless by accident…I exist, nothing else.” 

No defiance. No hope. A self-centered surrender. An aimless fury. 

I held him harder to squeeze his poisonous words and feelings out of him. His claws scratched me, and it stung, my blood mixing with his, mother and son in the not-my-mother universe. I wrapped my arms around him further, urging my heart to ensconce him, for him to understand and trust me again, for my heartbeat to be the song I didn’t sing all those years ago. 

But weary and old, I faltered, and he slithered out of my grasp. 

After that incident, I feared for his life, but no matter what I did, I could not stop him from leaving the cave. 

“Doo-dool.” was what dribbled from my mouth when I pleaded with him to “Stay.”

“Warovvish” was another when I reminded him to “Be careful.”

He shook his head at me, his senile mother, and lifted me by armpits to gently set me aside.

Then, he would go and return covered in blood that was not his. 

On the final day he abandoned me, I grabbed his wrist.

I made a sound like a wave ebbing away from the shore. 

“I’m sorry.” 

His face lit up. He recognized something in my speech! He understood me! 

He calmly detached my fingers from his wrist and whispered, “Nihil ex nihilo.” 

And just like that he was gone. 

And this time, there was no third chance to save him. This time, he crawled back drowning in his own blood. This time I could not cradle him to revival. This time I gave up on my song. This time the cacophony won. 

And this time, I didn’t care.