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Moss

by Shi Y, Arizona, USA, Age 16

The child came from the forest; we found it asleep at the wood’s end bedraggled and apparently exhausted. We—that is my sister Rina and I—stumbled upon it while chasing rabbits on a Tuesday afternoon. That night it was moved into our house, and by Friday morning, our mother had fallen in love with the pathetic creature.

It wasn’t what you’d think, however, that endeared it to her; it wasn’t because the thing was needy, or wretched, or even because it demanded pity and compassion. To all intents and purposes, mother was insane, and at first we could only hazard a guess as to the reason for her infatuation with the simple-minded, reeking mammal. All it meant for us, in the beginning, was that the child—she forced us to call it that, though the sound was loathe to my ear and stuttered across my tongue (that was no child!)—that the child spent an indefinite amount of time huddled in the shadow of the nook and cranny in the corner of our kitchen, where we all did our best to ignore its highly offensive presence.

Mother was content for weeks merely catering to the thing’s whims, of which there were none. This fact didn’t daunt her, of course; she would pretend Moss (that’s what she called it) revealed all of its innermost thoughts and desires to her on a daily basis, and she accordingly busied herself with what she imagined those fancies to be: a longing for a familiar lullaby, for example, or a passage from a particular book, or even an interest in understanding the fundamentals of written speech. This endless quest for the perfect pastime, I think, would have continued for eternity, as it pleased her quite well, were it not for the creature’s total lack of interest. All it did was lie in some semblance of the fetal position with an expression of resentful stupidity on its grubby face. Rina and I were sure it was one of the rascal children from the village come to torment us, so we would occasionally watch it out of the corners of our eyes, just waiting to catch it in a slip that would betray its true identity—a flicker of intelligence, perhaps, or a cocky grin, or a sly finger embarking on a journey to the center of its nose, which was an activity we saw the village children partake in quite frequently. However, no such thing ever happened in our presence, so we gave up, concluding Moss was a spawn of Satan sent to haunt us. So when mother finally admitted there was something wrong with her beloved Moss, Rina and I tried to tell her what we already knew, because we were experts, you see, having gone to Father Michael in the village more than both our parents combined (though that was only because he gave us chocolates for confessing our sins), but she wouldn’t hear any of it. She said Moss was not used to the way things happened outside the forest, and she said that meant we would have to assimilate him thereafter.

It was the assimilation that I really hated. It meant Rina and I had to drag it listlessly behind us when we went to play outside; it meant we had to sleep on either side of it in our little bed; it meant we had to take it with us to the priest; and it even meant that we had to love it. Rina and I begged Father not to let Mother assimilate the thing, but Father would only raise his hands helplessly and lock himself in the bathroom for hours.

Mother didn’t like that, so one day she said to Father, “Moss is having a difficult time adjusting, Paul, and you know we must do our best to provide a nurturing home for him. We’ve all had to make sacrifices, Paul, but Moss is still not completely comfortable here. He told me so this morning, and it nearly broke my heart. You know he never asks for anything, bless his sweet soul. Well, I think it’s obvious we’ve been selfish, Paul, and I don’t see any other way, you know.”

To which he asked warily, “Any other way than what, Mary?”
“Well, she says. “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? We’ll have to take the door off the bathroom.”
Father stared at her for a very long moment. “We will not become animals, Mary,” he said very quietly.
Mother smiled her secret smile, the one that says ‘I win.’ “There’s no other way, Paul. I’m afraid there is just simply no other way.” She eyed him viciously, fingering the buttons of her dress absentmindedly. She was watching him for signs of weakness; she was feeding off his anger, and licking it from her red-stained fingertips.

Father stared at her interminably, then slowly, very slowly, turned and walked out the door. He did not come back that night, and Mother smiled her secret smile all the while, and whispered intently to Moss, who stank vacantly on the kitchen floor.