jamieproctor.ca

By a pond, in a pit, under the dirt, lay ten eggs, soft and small and filthy.

They were dug up and eaten by a skunk, along with two other nearby batches of eggs.

Another nest was unearthed and eaten by two crows.

Two OTHER nests hatched successfully into coin-sized little turtles that struggled free of the suffocating earth, only to be devoured by a very lucky passing fox.

One more nest hatched and saw all of its turtles make it to the water, where nine-tenths of them were consumed by fish. The only surviving turtle dodged fish for years, grew to adulthood, mated, and on its way to dig its nest crossed a road and was hit by a car.

This is how many troubled species work, most of the time.

***

In a tree, in a bough, in a woven basket, sat five eggs, speckled and small and relatively secure. The whole world lay ahead of them.

One came out slightly crushed and began to smell bad before very much time had passed. Mother ejected it from the nest with a few sharp flicks of her head.

One was doing very well indeed until a hungry raccoon came upon the nest just after sunrise and stuffed it into its face before being bombarded eyeball-first by Mother forced it into a hasty retreat.

One hatched and died right away for some reason. Mother ejected it from the nest with a few flicks of her head.

One hatched, grew, thrived, and became covered in feathers. It then left the nest to practice flight further and was devoured by a cat in a moment of inattentiveness.

One hatched, grew, thrived, fledged, and in the great dawning day of its new life, was picked off by a hawk while trying to find twigs to make its own nest.

This is how most successful species work, most of the time.

***

In a puddle, in an old tire, in a junk yard, sat a hundred eggs.

Half of them were wiped out by overflow caused by a light storm.

Half of them were devoured by dragonfly larva

Half of them were consumed by a passing swallow on leaving the water and taking flight.

Half of them were eaten by bats that evening.

And half of the leftovers from THAT were eaten on the wing by adult dragonflies.

Of the remaining three, one never managed to lay any eggs, one almost did but was eaten by a duck while laying, and the last one laid a hundred eggs.

This is how most very successful species work, most of the time.

***

In a bassinet, under a blanket, in a home sat a baby.

It grew up and learned to talk.  It grew up and learned to walk.

It got bigger and learned math and reading and writing.

It got bigger and learned about society and grades.

It got bigger and learned about owning a vehicle and a home and making money.

Then it designed, planned, constructed and sold a swathe of suburban sprawl that consumed the tree and the pond and the house it had grown up in, necessitating and encouraging as aspirational an increasingly-unlikely and unattainable lifestyle organized around and devoted to the personal use of inefficient single-family carbon-emitting vehicles. This was rewarded.

This is how at least one species works. So far.

***

The junk yard got a lot more tires and those tires got a lot more puddles though. So it wasn’t all bad for everybody.

“This is an island for you,” he was told. “It’s everything you’ve ever wanted, and everything you’ve ever needed, and all of it is on it and around it and under it and for you. There are books and wooden floors and walls; there are ferns and moss and stones; there are plums and secrets and cliffs. And it’s for you.”

So he stood on the docks for a while, looking up at it. At the stone cliffs and the green forest and the twitter and cheep and whistle of birds he didn’t quite recognize. At the gently roaring splash of the water on the rocks, and the lip-lap slap of it underneath the wooden dock, which was grey enough to feel proper and not so old as to be rotten.

There was just enough sun to be warm, and just enough of a breeze to keep cool. A gull yelled something insulting in its beautifully horrible voice.

And he walked off the dock and into the island.

***

There were ancient ruins, crumbled enough to be even more beautiful but not so far as to fall apart. Plants and moss and lichens coated them like damp green jewels.

He looked at them, and he walked through them, but he didn’t go inside and he couldn’t keep his mind from wandering away, like nothing he was looking at was quite real. Running a thumb over the surface of an old, old stone brought it a bit closer – yes, that’s stone, that’s real, that’s right – but kept its significant so very far away. Just a stone.

He looked at the carvings. They were complicated – so complicated his eyes twisted away from the details – and pretty, if crumbled. Maybe if he were more clever or enjoyed puzzles he would learn something from them.

So he walked through the ruins one more time, wandering mind and all. And he left.

***

The ocean was wide and blue and beautiful. The sky was nearly so, but with a smattering of exactly enough clouds for comfort. A little fish jumped some ways away, pursued by a dolphin. It was over half the planet and it was snuggled into a cove that hugged the island’s coast as deeply and reassuringly as a mother.

It was also a little too cold. He could dip his feet in, and they got used to it, and he could wade in, and he got used to that, but everything above his belly button hated it, absolutely hated it when the cold reached. He tried dipping his arms in first, fooling himself into thinking he was already swimming, but it didn’t work, and he was wondering what he’d do if he went into the water, or where he’d go, or what he would see. Besides it was awfully frightening to be anywhere deep enough to swim by himself.

So he waded back out again, and put his shirt back on and looked at the cove. And he left.

***

On a hill made of old, old, old rock and shaded by conifers that were the sort of deep green you can never find anywhere else, there stood a cottage of ambiguous size. Its outside was weathered greys; its roof was faded green tiles; its insides were the deep, worn, warm browns of wood that had been varnished a long time before anyone now living had been born.

In a corner of the building, in shelves built into the walls and onto the walls and anywhere they’d fit, were books. Some were ancient and yellowed and well-cared for; some had been printed on paper scarce better than newsprint and were falling apart at the seams; some were disconcertingly glossy with untattered jackets and looked to have been bought even less than a year ago. They were crammed into every shelf and when the shelves could hold no more they’d been stacked on top of them like cordwood. There were old old comic collections and new new bestsellers and pulp fiction and nonfiction and local history and histories of the world and everything and anything but in a very specific way and shape and texture that made it all boil down to being there, right there, in an old corner of an old building with a giant and frail glass window that didn’t quite fit right, so you could smell the pines and see them tremble in the breeze.

There was also a thing that was either a bed or a couch or not, which had large cushions.

He sat on the couch-or-not and he looked at the books. The very, very, very old books he remembered from when he was very, very, very young, and he felt fearfully ancient and distant from them just thinking of it, so badly his teeth hurt. The new and fresh books made him wary – he didn’t know names, or thought maybe he did and had forgotten – and when he opened one the thought of how long it had been since he’d done this nearly made him cry. The pages seemed to take forever, and sometimes he simply stopped in a sentence and couldn’t move.

When he was almost halfway done, he realized he might be enjoying himself, and he wanted to tell someone, but there was nobody there and the rest of the plot was making him anxious and when he looked at the author he felt old and frail and stupid.

The breeze had died down a little. The pines weren’t moving. He put the book back, page unmarked, and he left.

***

The kitchen was mostly windows and screens and an awful lot of counters, no two of which seemed to be alike and all of which had been used and cleaned very thoroughly until the cuts and chips had turned into a texture all of its own. There was a little open cupboard with big glass jars, fixed at a jaunty angle by their flattened sides and filled with flour, with sugar, with – inexplicably – little cheesy crackers. There was a small table stuffed haphazardly in the corner, in case someone didn’t want to go find where they were meant to eat and wanted to look down the island over the rocks and the trees and all the way out over the water.

The fridge was full of things, the cupboards were full of things, the freezer was full of things, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with them or for how long or if the stove was cleaned or how to clean it or if anything was being saved for some special occasion or how to tell if meat was thawed or if they had plums.

They did have plums, fat little black ones like he remembered. They cut cleanly, like he remembered. They were juicy, like he remembered.

He wasn’t sure if they tasted like he remembered. Maybe a little too sweet, or a little too bitter, or maybe the flesh was too flaky. And the memory was frustrating, because he knew he’d been too young and stupid to pay that much attention or care as hard as he seemed to, so he finished the plums while he looked out the window and watched the sunlight make the waves sparkle. And he left.

***

There were two doors; the heavy inner one, wooden and seamless and strong, and the thin metal one with a big mesh screen and a carefree clatter that came every time it swung open and clanged shut. It was loud and brief and bright as he walked down the paths in bare feet, eyes on the packed needles and soft moss and old, old stone and startlingly prickly little sprouts and shrubs. The water left him by sight, but its sound stayed softly with him. The trees took away the sun, but left the afternoon light. The air smelled like growing things and moving water, and as he walked aimlessly down narrow trails made by repeated footsteps he saw and heard furtive and fleeting scurries, of small bugs and things with fur.

But the thing he saw didn’t have six legs or fur at all. It was small, and bipedal, and feathered, and had a keratinous beak and bright, beautiful big eyes in its skull. It was a dinosaur, of modest but not tiny size, and it was as curious to see him as he was it.

He looked at the dinosaur. It tilted its head to the side at an improbable speed to look at him too, and it made a small dinosaur sound. It was so close and didn’t seem to mind, and the thought then came too him that unlike anything he’d seen when he was small, he now had a camera in his pocket right there, so he took it out and took a picture, then another picture because his hand was shaking, then changed his brightness settings so the picture would be visible, then another picture because he’d missed the dinosaur and taken a picture of the tree behind it, than another picture because he’d been zoomed out too far, and then one more picture as the dinosaur hopped, skipped, and fluttered into the air and out through the branches and into the rest of its life.

The photos were quite blurry. Then he realized that he’d been so busy taking them t hat his memories were blurry too, so he’d have to treasure the moment as it had been. Thinking about how to do that or if he could do that or whether he’d ever done that made his stomach uneasy and his footsteps sluggish, and so after only a little ways farther he stopped, then he turned, then he left.

***

The sun was low and the sky was somewhere between purple and blue with all the beautiful of both and the sureness of neither. His legs were slow but his path was downhill and well-worn, and it took him down to a small stretch of beach with more sand than gravel and less gravel than stone and a circle of rocks that had plainly been selected with a lackadaisical if enthusiastic eye for shape and size. They were slightly smeared with carbon from use, and they were in use, and the little red flicks of fire were only just making their way out of the tinder and filling up the kindling, yet to set to work on the half-seasoned logs and big dead dried branches.

Around the sticks sat those stones, and around those stones sat people, on big logs and big rocks and at least one or two very old and sort of beaten to hell folding chairs that had clearly been designed for a flat porch or a lawn or at least a different beach, one with a parking lot. They were bent and warped and creaky and bad and that made them very good indeed, especially for slouching, and slouching was good for stories, which was what all the people were doing, in between laughing, and drinking from a cooler, and eating things from various bags. Someone had produced a guitar and was making suspicious motions that kept indicating singing might happen.

He sat down on a rock and listened, and he ate some chips from a bag. But they talked too quickly to each other about too many things he didn’t understand, and after eating too many slightly-dew-dampened chips he felt a little sick in his stomach, so he said goodbye to someone or anyone or nobody and he left.

***

After he left he went to the dock again, and he sat on it and watched the moon without looking at anything and waited for the stars without anticipation.

Sound came to him from over the water from everywhere, turning into nothing but calm. Branches and breezes and waves and a cautious owl feeling out the start of the evening for itself. Every breath tasted of water and plants and life. Every step rubbed against his bare feet, sent vibrations up his leg, curled into his spine and gave notice of where he was and what it was and none of it remained with him. He’d just sat down and already it was all something that had happened far and forever away.

Closing his eyes made it better, because he couldn’t see, and worse, because he could hear everything. When he did it hard enough he couldn’t think, but the things that troubled him were too simple and big to be thoughts.

The island was everything he’d ever wanted and he didn’t want anything else and he didn’t want it and so he waited there, his feet dangling just above the water, and did nothing, and thought of nothing useful in particular, and watched for someone to take him back again.

Greetings, most august and charitable readers, and a most enthusiastic welcome to the sixteenth column of our biannual series featuring the residents of Uncle Amblefaster’s Home for Unusual Beasts. Today we’ll be taking a look at our most famous resident, Krystalwing the Merciless.

Krystalwing seems to have come out of the egg with a somewhat rare recessive trait that left her upper thorax and main flight wings partially para-mineralized – and more rare still, the invasive mineral in question was adamant-232. This lucky set of advantages gave Krystalwing the edge she needed to survive her matriculating broodflight; when many of her slower siblings would’ve been caught and devoured by her mother; Krystalwing would’ve been a very unpalatable mouthful indeed. Unfortunately it also made her an obvious target in the wild and made camouflaging herself to hunt difficult, particularly from anything that can detect even basic levels of ambient riadioarcana. This made her both a visible target for faerie sport-hunters and relatively simple to capture alive due to long-term malnourishment.

Krystalwing spent the subsequent sixteen years of her juvenile instar in the care of the infamous Uncle Moonlovewingbranchdoveskystarmoontwilightshinemoon’s Mystical Beast Experience (which you may have heard of in recent documentaries). After the incident was over and the authorities came in to recapture the exhibits and arrest the surviving management, Krystalwing managed to slip the net and go ‘on the lam’ into the fertile and deeply-populated half-oxen valleys of the Barsoon Lowlands. Here she thrived for more than six years completely undetected by dint of consuming every single witness to her nocturnal predations on farms, ranches, and pastures, down to the last bone, thread of cloth, and drop of blood. Clever rascal!

At last Krystalwing was located when she ate a shepherd who was sufficiently stubborn and vengeful to leave a spectroplasmic entity, which haunted the roadside where he was consumed for six months until a passerby was able to alert nearby law enforcement. Their subsequent investigations and corresponding disappearance were made a matter of record, as were the animal control squad, the emergency riot team, and the first three military griffin-copters, and so after two and a half weeks of blood, death and fire Krystalwing was subdued with an ultracandescent hap-arctic missile to the jugular.

Adapting Krystalwing (who’d by then adjudicated to merit ‘merciless’ peerage after killing at least sixty different sapients without prejudice as to age, social status, or infirmity) to the new life afforded her at Uncle Amblefaster’s Home for Unusual Beasts was a bit of a challenge. For one thing, we only had a single ultramaximum-security enclosure available at the time, and it was occupied (see column 1: Qxxrjhjdsah the Barely-Containable), so suitable quarters would be costly due to both their necessary scope and the speed required. For another, her food requirements were unusual: due to the complex invasion of much of her digestive systems and upper book lungs by adamant supergeometrine masses (which began due to careless medical support by unlicensed handlers at Uncle Moonlovewingbranchdoveskystarmoontwilightshinemoon’s Mystical Beast Experience), Krystalwing now required flesh and blood from specifically sapient creatures to prevent much of her remaining body from fully transmutorphing into adamant and then rupturing with sufficient force to detonate every ley line and fairy circle in a million-cubit radius. This would not be an ideal outcome.

Initial care was provided by the kindly and motivated staff at Kercepholon’s Grasp leviathan-mending hospital, who provided the expertise needed to keep Krystalwing subdued in slumber and nourished on an intravenous diet of liquefied medical cadavers. Meanwhile, a state-of-the-art compound was created by a substantial charitable effort from Glormfoot Brobdingpants’ Extra-Large ‘Giant-Sized’ Constructions, which did necessitate Glormfoot himself working four sixteen-hour shifts in a row and the emptying of several quarries-worth of mettlemarble and aurichalcum for the fencing, substrate mesh, and ‘finite-sky’ aviary blindscape. Finally a sacrificial colony of mnenemical worm-people was installed in the location and given a careful selection of rich inner lives and subjective experiences to ingest and assume as their own so as to provide a suitably renewable, nourishing, and affordable faux-sapient food source.

Two years on and we’re proud to say that all the difficulties and hardships have been worth it: Krystalwing is as healthy and happy as she’s likely to ever be, although she will never be releasable due to her over-habituation in prior captivity and the strong likelihood of a class IIX Armageddon if she’s ever uncontrolled for more than sixty minutes. She will spend the rest of her four-kalpa lifespan in our care where she receives ample food, dedicated medical attention, and a safe home that can withstand the unnamed energies radiating from her every heartbeat.

I’m somewhat light on personal anecdotes involving Krystalwing myself, as I only began working with her last year after her principal caregiver quit to spend more time with his grandchildren. I can, however, confidently report that any rumours regarding her internal autocatalysis spinning up out of control are completely false. Instead it thrums steadily and smoothly, like a heartbeat. If Krystalwing the Merciless ever suffers a catastrophic humour imbalance that spins her and this entire care center into a catastrophic neogenesis – resetting the land itself back to the primordial youth of this plane, when matter was a suggestion and space a novelty –  it will definitely not be by happenstance.

She could almost certainly do it on purpose, mind you, but I doubt she will. She REALLY likes it when I give her backskritches.

It wasn’t two pm. Two pm was when the bottle under the desk came out, at least on Fridays. It was one forty-nine pm and there was one patient left and they were just leaving and Dr. Madeline Skoggard, PhD, was just about to take a ten minute break a bit early when the phone rang.

“It’s two pm,” she lied to the secretary.

“It’s urgent,” he said.

“I’M urgent.”
“Your mom’s urgent, pick up the damned phone. I already told her you’d talk to her.”
Madeline sighed out forty years of disappointment over three seconds – with a little rasp of phlegm for good measure – and picked up the phone. “Dr. Skoggard speaking,” spoke Dr. Skoggard.

“Oh thank you, listen, it’s Jean, Jean Lyman from down the way, and I’m really sorry to be bothering you, it’s just that there’s this thing, this thing that’s happened with Sara, and I’m not sure what’s wrong, but it’s very urgent, and I need to tell you, and”

“Breathe,” commanded Dr. Skoggard. And it was so.

“It’s Sara,” said Jean, having breathed. “She’s, she’s JUMPING everywhere. Constantly. And it’s getting worse. This morning she was jumping on her bed; by lunch she was jumping onto the kitchen counter; and I swear to god heart in hand doctor I phoned you because ten minutes ago my little Sara, aged nine and three-quarters, jumped onto our roof. Standing start. Standing start! And you KNOW we never tolerated pole vaulting in this house, so I don’t have the faintest idea where she’s gotten it from.”

“Oh,” said Dr. Skoggard. “Well, this is pretty straightforward. Your daughter’s got a case of video game.”
“A what?

“A case of video game. Classic platformer by the sound of it. These things are pretty mechanically straightforward and burn themselves out reasonably fast, and indirect transmission is very rare, particularly once symptoms emerge – she probably picked it up off a schoolfriend directly by handling an oily controller or something. Just keep her away from colourful mushrooms and jewelry so she doesn’t get any powerups and it should burn out overnight.”
“But what if she’s on the roof when it happens?”
“No, it’s a very gradual descent. She’ll be as good as new by tomorrow. Listen, you want something to do? Take some photos to embarrass her with later, okay? Family memories are priceless. Phone me back if anything other than what I’ve described happens, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you so much, it’s just that”

‘”Goodbye,” said Dr. Skoggard to the phone.

“Hello,” said Madeline to the bottle in the desk drawer.

And she gave herself an extra glass for being so damned professional.

***

“I packed your lunch,” said mom. She handed her a bag of snakes.

“Your hair is very pretty and Paul shouldn’t judge you like that,” they told her. Then they turned into an eagle and Madeline was flying away on it before her phone went off in her ear.

“Flrgr,” she answered.

“Oh thank GOD listen doctor I’m so so so so sorry, I just had to phone you, I know it’s only ten am on a Saturday but listen, it’s about Sara, it’s gotten worse, and gotten different, and gotten weird, and, and, and, and, and”
“Breathe,” commanded Dr. Skoggard.

“Oh right I’m so sorry I’m so”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” said Dr. Skoggard. “Now, what’s Sara doing?”
“I don’t know,” said Jean in tears. “She – she left the house this morning! She packed up every object in reach, put them in her pockets – I have NO idea how they all fit – looted all the drawers and cabinets, asked me the same six questions twice in a row, then walked next door and did it all again!”
“Uh,” said Dr. Skoggard. “Wait – did she pick up anything outside?”
“Half our herb garden, the neighbour’s prize begonia, and three interesting rocks,” said Jean. “Why?”
“She’s gathering materials. No need to worry, it seems my initial diagnosis was a little off, that’s all. She doesn’t have video game, she’s got video GAMES. Compulsive looting, checking for new dialogue, and hoarding of crafting materials are all classic triple-A open world rpg syndromes. Tell me, did you see her jump?”
“Only a little, and it seemed, well, normal height or so.”
“Yes, then her case is still progressing. This is rare, but not unheard of, and it should still run its course without treatment. Typically it’ll burn itself out inside a few hours before the patient even leaves their immediate starting position. Too many options, you see. When she gets bored she’ll come back home.”

“Oh so she’s safe?”
“Did she take some sort of ‘starting equipment’ with her?”
“I think she took one of the butter knives.”
“Yes, that’ll do nicely. She probably can’t kill anyone with it, so don’t worry. Goodnight.”
“It’s ten in the m-“

The dream did not come back.

***

This time the phone rang well after the bottle had come out. But it was a nicer bottle – Madeline kept the good stuff at home for easy-access – and so she was entirely at peace with her phone and the universe.

“Go,” she said.

“I’m sorry?” said Jean. This was funny. Jean wasn’t meant to be phoning her right now.
“Lemme hear it. You. It. You.” She giggled. “You’re it. Tag.”
“Well, I just wanted to thank you. For everything you helped with.”
“Right?”
“Yes. Sara’s been fine all day. Nothing unusual whatsoever.”

“Goooooood.”
“And as soon as I find this danged credit card, I’ll be sure –”

“Wha?”
“-to pay you back appropriately, I know I need better insurance but-”

“Hol’ up. Just lose. The card? Or a whole thing, a wallet. A purse.”
“Well, it must just be the card. My wallet hasn’t left my bedside table since this morning and the only ones home are me and Sara.”
Terrible doom seeped in through the warm runny edges of Madeline’s reality. “Jean,” she said carefully, “has Sara said anything about currency tonight? Deals? Bargains? Bonuses? Weekend sales?”
“Well, I thought she was talking about her math courses, but”

“CANCEL THE CARD!” screamed Madeline down the line, her lungs leaping into her mouth and mushing her tongue. “For the love of god; she isn’t in remission yet! She’s stillillil VIDEO GAMES she gachaing, she’ss full-goddamned-gachaing! Cancel the card ten minutes ago and then lock her indoors twenty! Don’t listen to anything she says or she’ll get you tooooo and then you’ll spend all your savings on premium royal crystals or some shit DO IT NOW NOW NOW NOW!”

“But!”
“FUCK!” shouted Madeline. Then she threw her phone in the sink with the dishes.

Then she regretted that.

***

This time the phone call came after three pm, which meant the bottle under the desk had just been and gone and Dr. Skoggard felt basically at peace and happy with the world even if it was a Monday, so she was happy even though it was –

“Jean again, sorry to bother you, but I wanted to thank you again, everything’s fine, it’s wonderful, Sara is back to normal.”
“Glad to hear it,” said Dr. Skoggard, who wasn’t technically lying because she was pretty glad about everything right now.

“No, not one thing! As a matter of fact, she hasn’t even looked at a screen once since this morning!”
“Wonderful,” said Dr. Skoggard with genuinely adequate enthusiasm.
“And she said she wanted to play board games! She was so excited; it was SO hard to ask her to wait until later. Such a sad little face!”

“Superb.”
“Why, she used to HATE Risk!”
“Excellewait sorry, what?”
“Risk. The board game? She used to HATE it, but I’ve never seen her so fixated on something as she was that little world map. Wants to invade Australia, I expect!”
Madeline considered the window. She considered on whether cardboard was too big a leap for a virus to make from silicon. Surely if this had happened before someone would have written about it. Surely.

“Doctor?”
Madeline considered the horizon. Was that a siren, drifting from just over it? How far was the nearest air force base? Was that red natural? Was that glint of sunlight manmade? Was she being paranoid.

“Doctor?”

How far away were they from the nearest army bases? Air force installations? Missile silos.

“Doctor? Is everything okay?
“If it isn’t, it’s not your problem,” said Madeline. “Gotta go, bye.”

Then she finished the bottle. Because why not, if it’s Monday?