Sophie is in the first grade when she finds it hiding in the rocks beside the koi pond. She has never seen one before. She reaches out to touch it with two fingers, the way she has been taught to pet animals at the zoo. It is slimy and soft, but not unpleasant to touch. It reminds her of a manta ray\u2019s back, or the way a live fish feels when it tries to jump out of your hands. Its limbs wave weakly in response to her touch. Watching them, Sophie feels sick and slightly afraid.<\/p>\n
Sophie goes inside to tell her mother what she has found. Her mother is eating a salad.<\/p>\n
\u201cI found something in the garden,\u201d Sophie says.<\/p>\n
Her mother drops her fork. \u201cWhat did it look like?\u201d she asks.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike a jellyfish in the shape of a person. It felt like the manta rays at the aquarium.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou touched<\/em> it.\u201d Her mother shudders and pushes her plate away. \u201cWhere did you find it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBy the koi pond,\u201d Sophie says, wondering if there is going to be trouble. If this is like the time her bug collection fell over and worms and everything spilled out on the floor and her mother had to clean it all up.<\/p>\n Sophie\u2019s mother walks to the back door and locks it. \u201cDon\u2019t play in the backyard any more today, Sweetheart,\u201d she says. \u201cStay inside until your father comes home.\u201d<\/p>\n Sophie\u2019s father is a large man with sad eyes and broad shoulders. He sits in his favorite chair while his wife paces back and forth. \u201cThose things give me the creeps,\u201d Sophie\u2019s mother says. \u201cI can\u2019t sleep with it in the yard. I keep picturing the way it must look in the moonlight, like an aborted baby in a piscine eggsack. The color of something that was born in a cave and never saw light.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you expect me to do about it?\u201d Sophie\u2019s father asks.<\/p>\n \u201cI know better than to expect you to do anything.\u201d Sophie\u2019s mother crosses the room again. \u201cWhat really gets me, you know what really gets me is the eyes. Those black beady eyes. And the way their limbs just sort of flop around.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re harmless,\u201d Sophie\u2019s father says. \u201cEven if I could get rid of it, I wouldn\u2019t, Lisle. It isn\u2019t hurting anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n Sophie\u2019s mother sighs. \u201cI can\u2019t think straight with that thing in the yard,\u201d she says. Sophie\u2019s father is an artist. He teaches at local high schools or wherever else he can find a temporary position. Any spare cash goes towards his paints and canvases, and in times when work is hard to find, he resorts to painting with leftover house paint from around the neighborhood, Kool-Aid powder mixed with water, Sophie\u2019s old dried-up watercolor sets, his wife\u2019s expired makeup. He experiments with crushed fruits and berries, jellies, jams, and fruit juices. His more organic creations line the backyard fence. Some of his concoctions grow mold over time. Some begin to smell. Over his wife\u2019s objections he allows his blueberry jam painting to be overrun by fire ants. \u201cAvoid that corner of the yard,\u201d he tells Sophie. \u201cThey\u2019ll stay where the jam is.\u201d<\/p>\n Sophie\u2019s mother is appalled. \u201cIt\u2019s my yard,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s the yard my daughter plays in. Would you like it if Sophie tripped and fell onto an anthill?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSophie\u2019s a sentient being. She can avoid that corner of the yard.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want those ants in my yard,\u201d Sophie\u2019s mother says irritably.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere would you like them?\u201d Sophie\u2019s father asks.<\/p>\n \u201cNot in my yard!\u201d<\/p>\n That night, Sophie can\u2019t sleep. She goes downstairs to get a drink of water. There is a pot boiling on the stove.<\/p>\n The next day, the anthill is smaller and smoother and soggier, and the ants are gone.<\/p>\n At dinner Sophie\u2019s mother says that there have been more and more of them, and that no one knows why, or if they reproduce, or how they reproduce at all. They simply appear one day, she says, on a street corner or under a tree or in a body of water.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is happening all over the world,\u201d she says \u201cfor no discernable reason. It\u2019s like a plague of locusts or something. It\u2019s created an entire industry of confused scientists.\u201d<\/p>\n Sophie has seen three of them in her neighborhood, and one when she went to the grocery store with her mother, and one when her family went downtown for Sunday brunch. When her mother turns on the news, or leaves a newspaper lying around, she always looks for pictures of others.<\/p>\n They are limpid, floppy, and pale. They have small, dark eyes, and something that looks like it could be a face if it tried harder. But Sophie\u2019s mother says that isn\u2019t the worst part.<\/p>\n \u201cThe worst part,\u201d Sophie\u2019s mother says, \u201cis that they behave in ways that we can\u2019t explain with our current science. Some of them just lie there like blobs, and then there are others with these weird characteristics.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI read about one they found on the beach in Florida,\u201d Sophie\u2019s father says, \u201cthat appears when the tide goes out, but when the tide comes in and the water covers it, it\u2019s completely invisible.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s that,\u201d Sophie\u2019s mother says. \u201cThey\u2019ve found one near Madrid that grew to completely encase a tree. So there\u2019s a tree in Madrid that\u2019s covered with that filmy flesh, you know what they\u2019re like. And one actually appeared near campus the other day, so we had it transported to the lab for experimentation. It fluttered about in the wind as if it were nothing, but when they lifted it, it was heavier than lead. <\/p>\n \u201cKim, she\u2019s in the physics department, she\u2019s going out of her mind,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s no way to account for the weight discrepancy. We\u2019re thinking of performing a vivisection.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t you hate looking at them?\u201d Sophie\u2019s father asks. \u201cWhy would you want to cut one open?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important to know how they work,\u201d her mother explains. \u201cEither the universe is changing, or these things don\u2019t belong in it. I suspect the latter.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt seems cruel to me,\u201d her father says. \u201cTo cut something open while it\u2019s alive.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you can call them alive,\u201d Sophie\u2019s mother says. She shudders.<\/p>\n One appears on the blacktop at Sophie\u2019s middle school. This one is ambulatory, which is new and disturbing. It is vaguely humanoid, but skeletal and distorted, all ribs and no skin. And dark, glistening dark, like an oil slick.<\/p>\n Sophie\u2019s friend Brian claims a lunch table by the window so that he can watch the Pest Unit operate. Sophie isn\u2019t sure she wants to watch the Pest Unit, especially while she is eating, but she wants to watch Brian watch the Pest Unit. When Brian is excited by something, the blood drains from his face and his eyes are striking.<\/p>\n It is ambling purposelessly around one of the basketball hoops. \u201cLook at how it moves,\u201d Brian breathes. \u201cIt\u2019s like one of those wooden snakes with the notches in, you know. It kind of\u2026 slinks forward, look, it\u2019s like it leads with its abdomen\u2014can you call that an abdomen?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy mom uses terms from insect anatomy,\u201d Sophie says, hoping this comment is useful. \u201cThe abdomen, and the thorax.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s the sense in that?\u201d Brian asks, amused. \u201cInsect bodies have defined segments. I can\u2019t even tell what this guy\u2019s skeletal structure is trying to do. It\u2019s just ribs all the way down. What do you think it feels like?\u201d<\/p>\n Sophie winces a bit, and regrets it immediately. \u201cI touched one once,\u201d she says. \u201cIt felt sort of like a fish, but without scales. Just the slipperiness of a fish in your hands.\u201d Sophie looks down at her sandwich, tuna on white bread. It looks pale and cold. She takes a bite.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve touched plenty,\u201d Brian says. \u201cBut they\u2019re not usually black like that. They don\u2019t usually look so boney. Do you think it feels like bone?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Sophie says. The Pest Unit is fanning out in a circle. The principal and a few staff members stand well back from the scene in a tense cluster. The object of this intense scrutiny seems entirely unaware that anything unusual is happening. It continues its patternless ambling, always around the central point of the basketball hoop.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you think they have eyes for?\u201d Brian asks. \u201cIt\u2019s like they can\u2019t see anything. I\u2019ve clapped my hands in front of their eyes\u2014nothing. No reaction. But they never walk into anything, either.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not like they can\u2019t see anything,\u201d Sophie says. \u201cIt\u2019s like they see you and they don\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n Brian smiles, and Sophie feels filled with flushed buzzing. \u201cYou know, I hadn\u2019t thought of that, Soph,\u201d he says, sounding slightly awed. \u201cThey\u2019re looking at you, perceiving you, but they\u2019re entirely indifferent.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the men around the perimeter of the circle takes out a metal pole. He prods the thing, and it slinks away from the stimulus towards the direction of the schoolyard gate.<\/p>\n \u201cEven a pigeon or a squirrel or something,\u201d Brian says, \u201cif you reach out to touch it, it\u2019ll move away. Everything that isn\u2019t domesticated lives in fear of us. Most species don\u2019t want to be anywhere near us. If humans infiltrate an area, they\u2019ll leave.\u201d<\/p>\n Subject to continual prodding, the thing slinks a good eight feet or so from the basketball hoop. Then it blinks out of existence. Instantaneously it is standing directly underneath the basketball hoop. Again it slinks forward in its ambling way, unconcerned that it has just violated the laws of physics. Sophie can\u2019t hear the members of the Pest Unit through the window, but she can tell that they are cursing.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think they\u2019ll be able to move it,\u201d Sophie says.<\/p>\n One of the Pest Unit women walks over to the principal. The man with the pole continues to poke at the thing, and it ambles forward again until it crosses its invisible line and is transported back to its point of origin beneath the basketball hoop.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you think they\u2019ll kill it?\u201d Brian asks. His eyes are blazing. Sophie doesn\u2019t know what answer he is hoping for, and her hands tremble with desire and confusion.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mom says they don\u2019t know how to kill them,\u201d Sophie says, \u201cyet. People are working on it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYour mom is, you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n Sophie glances through the window at the unfamiliar skeletal structure slinking forward grotesquely at each prod of the pole. <\/p>\n \u201cYeah. Her lab is.\u201d<\/p>\n Brian leans forward. \u201cShe\u2019s got test subjects?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Sophie says. \u201cShe doesn\u2019t talk about work much.\u201d Sophie takes another bite out of her sandwich.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat does she mean, they don\u2019t know how to kill them? What happens if you stab them, or shoot them?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe says it leaves a hole,\u201d Sophie says. \u201cBut they heal very fast.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, what if you cut them up into little pieces and scatter them all over, what happens then? Do all the little pieces keep moving? Do they try to find each other and connect back up?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know, Brian,\u201d Sophie pleads. \u201cI\u2019m trying to eat.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSorry,\u201d Brian says. His eyes wander back to the window, where the thing is being prodded in the opposite direction as before. \u201cI guess they\u2019re trying to gauge the circumference of its territory,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Sophie puts the sandwich back in its plastic container. She decides to focus on the Cheetos instead. They are crunchy and dry and don\u2019t look like they\u2019ve ever been alive.<\/p>\n \u201cThey regenerate like starfish,\u201d Sophie\u2019s mother explains, \u201cbut it\u2019s not really like starfish at all.\u201d She carves a piece of roast lamb and places it on Brian\u2019s plate. \u201cThey\u2019re not very organized\u2014they don\u2019t have a skeleton or layers of fat or skin. The material they\u2019re made of varies, but there\u2019s no pattern to it\u2014a bony, skeletal material might coat one appendage, for instance. And if you cut them open, you\u2019re as likely to find soft, pliable tissue as you are anything resembling a skeleton.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDoes that hold for the ambulatory ones as well?\u201d Brian asks.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ambulatories are more structured, but we don\u2019t understand how the skeletons they have support walking upright. That being said, we haven\u2019t had a very good chance to examine one. They\u2019re difficult to examine because they won\u2019t stop moving, and there\u2019s no way to sedate them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor someone who dislikes these creatures so intensely,\u201d Sophie\u2019s father says, \u201cyou do seem to enjoy talking about them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is my work, Viktor,\u201d Sophie\u2019s mother says with a dangerous laugh. \u201cIf you talked to a detective I\u2019m sure you\u2019d hear all about the criminal mind. That doesn\u2019t mean that detectives like criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey must like something about them, or they wouldn\u2019t have gone into that line of work,\u201d Sophie\u2019s father says.<\/p>\n \u201cI sort of like them,\u201d Brian says. \u201cThe creatures, I mean. They\u2019re biologically unprecedented. You don\u2019t find that just a little exciting, Ms. Engel?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think they\u2019re abhorrent,\u201d Sophie\u2019s mother says. \u201cBut I\u2019ll give them this much\u2014they\u2019ve exploded the field of biology. Not to mention physics.\u201d<\/p>\n Sophie\u2019s mother talks about the structure of the creatures, the instability of their particles, the ratio of oxygen, carbon, and heavy metal particles in comparison to ordinary carbon-based life. Sophie begins to construct a tower of peas using her fork. It isn\u2019t until her father stands up and leaves the room that Sophie tunes in to the conversation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve found that anything acidic or corrosive will affect them,\u201d her mother is saying, \u201cbut their bodies rebuild at almost the same rate as they\u2019re dissolved. They heal at a speed that is quite literally unbelievable\u2014it doesn\u2019t look like anything we\u2019ve seen before. But we\u2019ve had some progress with nanoparticles, particularly reactive oxygen compounds, injected directly into the organism\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cExcuse me,\u201d Sophie says. \u201cI think I\u2019m finished eating.\u201d<\/p>\n She finds her father in the backyard, his easel set up beside the koi pond. He has outlined the shape of the creature in translucent pink-white against the blue-green water and cool grey rocks, and he is dappling the creature and the water with flecks of light. Sophie looks at the painting, then she looks at the being again, startled.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of beautiful,\u201d she says uncertainly.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is,\u201d her father says. \u201cBut it\u2019s not beautiful enough.\u201d He mixes more gold into his paint. Sophie stands and watches.<\/p>\n Brian and Sophie are walking home from high school when Brian says, \u201cLook, Soph.\u201d<\/p>\n Sophie looks. She sees one nestled in the grass, naked and pink, like a baby animal.<\/p>\n \u201cI bet it would fit in my backpack,\u201d Brian says. He moves towards it, brimming with scientific curiosity. He prods it with the toe of his shoe. \u201cIf you tear a hole in them, they just grow back,\u201d Brian says. \u201cSo but what if you distort them, like, do they just snap back into place, like a rubber band? Or do they kind of\u2026 slowly reform.\u201d He lifts his foot. Sophie\u2019s stomach drops.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mother would know,\u201d Sophie says desperately. \u201cBrian you don\u2019t have to, my mother already knows that, we can just ask her. I bet she\u2019s at home right now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYour mother doesn\u2019t come home until six,\u201d Brian says distractedly. His foot is slowly lowering onto the creature\u2019s head. Brian\u2019s foot is lowering onto its head, and it is squashing, squashing it, and Brian\u2019s face is tense with cruel concentration, measuring the sensation of the pressure exactly. Brian, stop.<\/em> Sophie\u2019s lips move. She has no voice. She is voiceless in the face of its appalling, distorted head that slowly gives way to Brian\u2019s foot. Its distended pancake of a head, with only one eye visible, the other on the other side of the disk, fishlike. Its black, beady, unchanging eye and its waving limbs.<\/p>\n Brian swivels his foot. \u201cGeez, these things are malleable,\u201d Brian says. \u201cAre they all like this?\u201d<\/p>\n He lifts his foot. The head does not snap into place. For one horrible moment, Sophie fears that it will stay that way forever. But it billows out again, an object unrestrained by gravity or physics, lazily deciding to retain its original shape.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re regenerative,\u201d Brian says. \u201cSo if you tear off a limb, another will grow back, yeah? Like a starfish, but faster.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI have to get home, Brian,\u201d Sophie says.<\/p>\n Brian kneels down on the grass.<\/p>\n Sophie walks away as quickly as she can.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve done it,\u201d Sophie\u2019s mother says. Her cheeks are flushed and she is breathless, as though she has been running. She\u2019s forgotten to take off her safety goggles.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat have you done?\u201d Sophie\u2019s father asks. He sounds tired.<\/p>\n \u201cYou forgot to take off your safety goggles,\u201d Sophie says.<\/p>\n \u201cOh!\u201d Her mother laughs and hangs her goggles on the coatrack. \u201cWe found a way to get rid of them today. We had been applying ROS in concentrated doses, and we had some positive results from that, but today we discovered that we can induce endogenous production! Their own overactive regenerative abilities can be harnessed to produce poison. It grows in them like cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cROS,\u201d Sophie\u2019s father says. \u201cWhat\u2019s ROS? An insecticide?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a reactive molecule that\u2019s present in all forms of life, but in excess it\u2019s incredibly damaging. And if an externally applied liquid can induce endogenous production of ROS, exclusively in the type of organism being targeted\u2014this has wider applications than the specific pestilence we\u2019re working with now. We\u2019ve already started negotiations with a few pesticide companies, and this is going to be an incredibly lucrative enterprise. You know they still have that ambulatory on the middle school blacktop fenced off? And that\u2019s just in our neighborhood, this is happening all over the world\u2026 imagine what the government of New York will pay to rid itself of the ambulatory in Times Square!\u201d<\/p>\n There is silence for a moment. Then Sophie\u2019s father says: \u201cI\u2019ve made spaghetti.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout dinner, Sophie\u2019s mother continues to talk about the future\u2014we will be able to vacation this year, she says, and not just Disney World, either. \u201cWe\u2019ll go to Europe! Venice, Florence, Milan. Didn\u2019t you tell me you wanted to see Venice before you died, Viktor, and I\u2019ve done it!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLisle,\u201d Sophie\u2019s father says. \u201cDo you remember the day we had a picnic by the river?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d Sophie\u2019s mother says, smiling. \u201cWe\u2019d been dating for six months or something like that. I remember.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou brought Silent Spring<\/em>,\u201d Sophie\u2019s father says. \u201cYou read passages out loud while we watched the river boats. You loved Rachel Carson.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI do love Rachel Carson,\u201d Sophie\u2019s mother says. She isn\u2019t smiling anymore.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you think Rachel would say about all of this, Lisle?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do I know about what Rachel Carson would have to say about creatures who don\u2019t obey the laws of physics, or chemistry\u2014who don\u2019t even seem to belong in this dimension,\u201d Sophie\u2019s mother says. \u201cI have absolutely no idea what Rachel Carson would think about that, because she didn\u2019t live in that world. We do.\u201d<\/p>\n Sophie begins to eat her spaghetti as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n \u201cYou used to want to save the world,\u201d Sophie\u2019s father says.<\/p>\n \u201cYou used to want to be a famous and successful artist,\u201d Sophie\u2019s mother snaps, \u201cand look how that turned out. Now I would love nothing more than to go save the rainforest, and when you start earning a salary that will put our daughter through college, that\u2019s exactly what I\u2019ll do. In the meantime, however, I have just participated in an earthshattering scientific breakthrough, and I come home, and I expect you to be happy for me at least this once, at least tonight\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s blood money, Lisle,\u201d Sophie\u2019s father says, and Sophie\u2019s mother laughs shrilly.<\/p>\n \u201cBlood money?\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s as much blood in those things as you\u2019d get out of a rock. What blood?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve finished my spaghetti,\u201d Sophie says. She puts her plate in the sink and goes to her bedroom and shuts the door.<\/p>\n Now when Sophie walks home from school with Brian she keeps her hands in her pockets and her eyes on the ground. Brian kicks a stone with his foot, catches up to it, kicks it again. The stone doesn\u2019t roll straight ahead consistently, so Brian zigzags from one side of the sidewalk to the other. Sophie is walking behind him in a straight line, thinking, when Brian kicks the stone into the grass, wheels around, and looks Sophie in the eyes with an intensity that startles her.<\/p>\n \u201cHey, Soph.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah?\u201d Sophie says, confused.<\/p>\n \u201cCan I try something?\u201d Brian says. \u201cLike an experiment.\u201d<\/p>\n He kisses her.<\/p>\n Sophie tries to pay attention to the sensation of his lips, tries to focus on their texture\u2014soft, warm, wet, pleasantly strange\u2014to the exclusion of all else. But she can hear Brian\u2019s mind working, evaluating, measuring the kiss and adjusting the movement of his mouth. With her eyes closed, she can see the look of intense concentration on his face\u2014the same concentration with which he had lowered his sneaker\u2014<\/p>\n Brian pulls back. \u201cAre you crying?\u201d he asks.<\/p>\n Sophie lifts a hand to her eye. It feels wet.<\/p>\n \u201cGeez, Soph,\u201d Brian says. \u201cWhat am I, Georgie Porgie?\u201d<\/p>\n Sophie hiccups a sad, wet laugh, and then she begins to sob uncontrollably.<\/p>\n \u201cAlright, alright,\u201d Brian says, alarmed. \u201cSorry, Soph, I thought you\u2019d like it. I thought you\u2019d be into it\u2014geez, Soph, what the hell is wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n Sophie tries to speak between sobs. \u201cYou\u2014can be so nice\u2014Brian\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, that\u2019s nothing to cry about,\u201d Brian says, bemused.<\/p>\n \u201cThings\u2014could be so\u2014good\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut I guess they\u2019re not,\u201d Brian says. He puts an arm around Sophie. He is warm, and she leans in towards the comfort. \u201cIt\u2019s alright, Soph,\u201d he says soothingly. \u201cFailed experiment. You\u2019re practically a sister to me, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n Sophie hiccups, confused and miserable.<\/p>\n At night, Sophie can\u2019t sleep. She goes downstairs to get a drink of water. As she turns out the light, she looks out the window into the backyard. Her mother is kneeling beside the koi pond.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere is it?\u201d Sophie\u2019s father asks.<\/p>\n Sophie begins to push her meatball around with her fork, wondering how long she has to pretend to eat before she can excuse herself.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat happened to it?\u201d her father says.<\/p>\n \u201cI got rid of it,\u201d her mother says. \u201cWhy? Did you need it for something?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt might have needed itself for something,\u201d her father says in a voice as calm as a dormant volcano.<\/p>\n \u201cEx\u2014\u201d Sophie begins.<\/p>\n \u201cThose things don\u2019t need anything,\u201d her mother says. \u201cNot food, not oxygen. They\u2019re not alive in the sense that we understand the word. You\u2019re wasting your sympathy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy sympathy,\u201d her father says.<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d her mother says, \u201cYour sympathy for those things, which are now more important to you than your wife, your child? Where are your priorities?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cExcuse\u2014\u201d Sophie attempts.<\/p>\n \u201cWho\u2019s making me choose? When did I say that you were less\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen is the last time you\u2019ve asked me how work is going, Viktor, when is the last time you showed a shred of concern for me\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are we having this conversation at dinner,\u201d Sophie says helplessly, and both of her parents fall silent. Their eyes lower towards their plates.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d her mother says curtly.<\/p>\n \u201cExcuse me,\u201d her father says. He opens the screen door and goes outside to the backyard.<\/p>\n Sophie and her mother finish their spaghetti in silence.<\/p>\n The next day, out of some morbid fascination or misguided sense of nostalgia, Sophie goes outside in the backyard to look at the koi pond. The thing is gone. But she finds, in its place, a painting.<\/p>\n Sophie\u2019s mother\u2019s company sells the ROS-inducing compound, ReOx Active, to a pesticide company. Large-scale manufacturers of ReOx Active spring up overnight, creating sprays and dusts for the purposes of pest-termination. Sophie knows that this is happening; she sees it on the news, on the new television that her father refuses to watch. She sees them take down the barriers in Times Square that marked the territory of an ambulatory. She thinks about leaving the room when her mother turns on the elimination of the one on Venice Beach, but she stays, and she watches its pale body that remains rooted in the same place on the surface of the water, regardless of the motion of the waves, dissolve into the foam. They shrivel and shrink like salted slugs. Each one dies surrounded by hostile spectators who cheer for the victory of humanity, or who silently observe and record the process. Every time Sophie\u2019s mother turns on the news, another is being destroyed.<\/p>\n Brian is agitated. \u201cWe\u2019re destroying them, and we don\u2019t even know how they work! There are experiments left to be performed. We don\u2019t understand their regeneration\u2014what if we could harness that? These beings can teleport<\/em>, Soph, and we\u2019re killing them off haphazardly!\u201d<\/p>\n Sophie doesn\u2019t talk to Brian much anymore, and when she does, she feels a vague, dull ache where something wonderful used to be.<\/p>\n They are disappearing around her city, as well. The ambulatory on the middle school blacktop is gone, as are the two who lived in the hollows of oak trees she passes on her way to school. The scaly flounder-like one that flops in the grass in the Trinhs\u2019 front yard. An intersection that had been closed off due to a thing that was tough enough to total cars is now open for the first time in years. And the bank of the river seems empty without the dozen bizarre creatures that had lain limply among the rocks.<\/p>\n Sophie\u2019s walk to school becomes marked by places where they had been. Bare patches of grass, moldy spots on trees. She counts them off, without wanting to or trying to\u2014the floppy, pale one who peered impassively out of the hollow of the oak a block from her house. The pinkish, opalescent one that always seemed to hold rainbows within its nearly translucent flesh. The tiny one that hid in the azalea bush in front of the Stampleys\u2019 house and shimmered in and out of existence, wavering between visible and invisible. Every day, she silently marks each one missing, and the list only grows longer as even the most well-hidden are discovered by professional exterminators.<\/p>\n One day, Sophie walks past the Trinhs\u2019 yard and realizes that the empty patch of grass is inhabited once more. Standing in the grass is a painting. Sophie blinks and approaches the canvas.<\/p>\n It is a painting of a being, smooth and radiant white, texturally distinct from the rough, green grass that surrounds it, both in the painting and outside of it. Its black, perfectly round eye is echoed in a second round shape\u2014the reflection of the sun, gloriously refracted through the scales of an uncomfortably beautiful rendition of something exterminated. The paintings appear more rapidly than the beings had vanished. The neighborhood is spotted with paintings propped up like tombstones, and when one is removed or thrown away\u2014as they often are\u2014another rises to take its place.<\/p>\n Sophie moves through school and through her neighborhood feeling that the paintings are always being discussed just out of earshot, that conversations are hushed and halted when she enters the room. She finds herself missing Brian\u2019s insulting directness. Brian would not be afraid to tell Sophie what people are saying about her father. But Brian now spends his days in the school\u2019s chemistry lab with a group of boys who are equally fond of chemicals and explosions. Sophie feels no desire to seek out his company. So she continues to drift through halls and down streets, imagining herself the eye in a hurricane of conversation.<\/p>\n At school the silence is permeable, a thing that can be moved through. At home, it sits in the center of the table, and dinners are tense and heavy, punctuated by such phrases as \u201cPlease pass the potatoes,\u201d \u201cSchool was fine, thank you,\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m finished eating, excuse me.\u201d Sophie\u2019s father\u2019s face is lean; his eyes are bright and manic. After dinner, Sophie\u2019s mother retires to her office, pointedly ignoring Sophie\u2019s father\u2019s return to the backyard, and Sophie goes to her bedroom to be told by textbooks that chemicals break molecules apart.<\/p>\n Sophie always tries to fall asleep before midnight, before the silence breaks and she is forced to lie with a pillow pressed over her head hearing snatches of conversations she isn\u2019t meant to, shouldn\u2019t have to hear. One night among others, her mother\u2019s melodic voice rises to a sharp metallic octave that she never uses when talking to Sophie, and her father\u2019s softer yet more penetrating voice pierces the walls of Sophie\u2019s bedroom, accusations coming to her in fragments, like barely-remembered nightmares:<\/p>\n \u2014Lisle, please. It isn\u2019t right and I know you know, Lisle.\u2014<\/p>\n \u2014I don\u2019t see you doing anything to help, I\u2019m the one working every day to keep this family, and you never even, and it\u2019s always me who\u2014<\/p>\n \u2014This isn\u2019t the woman I married. The woman I married would never, ambition tempered with kindness, you always used to say\u2014<\/p>\n \u2014I\u2019m not a work of art, I\u2019m a person, I\u2019m a human being and I change\u2014<\/p>\n \u2014When you said you wanted to save the world, I should have asked what you were going to save it from\u2014<\/p>\n And finally her father\u2019s voice, rising to a desperate break:<\/p>\n \u2014I don\u2019t care about the blasted creatures! It\u2019s you, Lisle, it\u2019s you, it\u2019s what they\u2019re doing to you\u2026<\/p>\n In the morning, the house smells like blueberry pancakes. Everything\u2019s alright then,<\/em> Sophie thinks with relief. <\/p>\n They\u2019ve made breakfast, and everything\u2019s going to be fine.<\/em> She whistles optimistically as she slides into yesterday\u2019s jeans, and she bounds downstairs two steps at a time, fully prepared to do her part in pretending that nothing is wrong. Her mother is at the stove flipping a pancake.<\/p>\n \u201cGood morning!\u201d Sophie says brightly, in a voice that means last night never happened.<\/em><\/p>\n Sophie\u2019s mother turns. Her eyes are red and sleepless. She is wearing yesterday\u2019s clothes. \u201cGood morning,\u201d she says, and she smiles. She gestures towards the counter, where Sophie sees a stack of half a dozen blueberry pancakes, a dozen strawberry waffles, two large plates of cinnamon swirl french toast, and fresh-baked raisin bread artfully arranged among assorted seasonal fruits.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s all the food for?\u201d Sophie asks apprehensively.<\/p>\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t sleep,\u201d her mother says, turning her attention back to the stove. Her shoulders shake. \u201cGrab a plate, darling.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMom?\u201d Sophie steps forward. \u201cIs everything okay? Where\u2019s\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was all made this morning,\u201d her mother says in a small and trembling voice. \u201cIf any of it is cold you can\u2014\u201d She breaks off with a sob. Sophie\u2019s hands rise to cover her ears. Guiltily, she lowers them again.<\/p>\n Sophie grabs a plate from the dishwasher and loads it with some of everything. She sits at the table and begins to shovel her mother\u2019s cooking into her mouth. She eats it slowly. Methodically.<\/p>\n Sophie excuses herself as soon as she can. Her stomach curdles with the guilt of wanting to be away from her mother, but she cannot listen to one more broken, half-stifled cry.<\/p>\n As she walks to school, Sophie wonders where her father has run to. If he has gone to stay with a friend, or another woman. Out of the corner of her eye, she notices that the lagoon is busier than usual. Far busier than usual. The lagoon is surrounded by dozens of people, many of them holding the orange hoses that spray ReOx Active in its liquid form.<\/p>\n Later, she will try to justify it to herself retroactively. She will make up reasons about her father and her mother, about her confusion and her rage, and every time she replays the scene in her mind the reasons will be different. She will never know why, when she passed the extermination on this day of all days, instead of walking away with her head down, she walked toward it.<\/p>\n Most of the exterminators and spectators are concentrated around one knob of the lagoon, an area of shallow, still water that is known to be a friendly habitat for tadpoles and ducks. Sophie remembers catching frogs on its banks as a child. It is a large knob, but not unmanageably so, and at its narrowest part one can cross it by means of a bridge, which holds its own fair share of exterminators as well as a smattering of children. The goal, then, will be to corner the creature in this particular section of the lagoon, between the bridge and the banks of the knob, thereby cutting off any avenue of escape.<\/p>\n Sophie sits down beside the small children on the bridge. They are babbling and throwing small stones into the water, talking about the creatures they\u2019ve seen and how they watched them die. \u201cI saw one get shot in the chest,\u201d a boy tells his friend, \u201clike blam-blam-blam!<\/em> He fell down like this.\u201d Sophie hears the boy groan dramatically and fall to his knees. She grins, and immediately hates herself for it.<\/p>\n She is distracted by the sound of a motor. A small boat approaches the knob, carrying several men with ReOx Active hoses spraying full-blast. \u201cWe\u2019ve got \u2018em!\u201d one of the men shouts. \u201cKeep your eyes on the water!\u201d The men are aiming their hoses so that the ReOx Active advances in a line. Presumably, the chemicals are pushing their prey towards the knob, and towards its certain death. But Sophie does not see what they are aiming at.<\/p>\n And then she does. It is only for a moment. It wavers into existence, pale blue and humanoid, and wavers out as seamlessly as ripples on water. \u201cYou see that?\u201d somebody yells, and the men on the boat redouble their efforts, in which they are joined by the men and women on the bridge.<\/p>\n Sophie clenches her fists. Her nails press into her palms. She wishes that they would draw blood.<\/p>\n She glimpses it again, briefly. A waif of a being made from translucent jellyfish material, speckled lightly with what looks like scales. It drifts slowly away from the stream of ReOx Active. Sophie wonders if that is as fast as it can swim.<\/p>\n It is closer now. The men and women on the bank of the lagoon turn their hoses on and pump their poisons into the water. The creature is fully visible now; whether it was invisibility or camouflage that hid it before, it is no longer working. It drifts towards the center of the knob, as far as it can get from the hoses. Its limbs waver in the water like ripples, like a trick of the light. One limb is fully extended, reaching out for something. Sophie silently screams inside of her mouth.<\/p>\n When the second one appears, shimmering in and out of existence in the water, and reaches out to touch its companion, Sophie feels like she already knew. They reach for each other, wavering pitifully; they are falling into foam at the edges. Sophie clenches her fists tighter. The ReOx Active is clouding the water. The second being opens all of its limbs, wraps itself around the first one, shielding it from the cloud of poison. You can\u2019t protect them from this,<\/em> Sophie wants to shout. You idiot, you idiot, can\u2019t you see there\u2019s nothing you can do?<\/em> <\/p>\n The little boy and his friends are shouting encouragement to the exterminators, shoving each other out of the way to try to get a better look at the water. One of the exterminators squints with cruel concentration, adjusting the aim of her ReOx hose.<\/p>\n Stop, Sophie thinks. Stop. Stop.<\/em><\/p>\n She opens her mouth. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sophie is in the first grade when she finds it hiding in the rocks beside the koi pond. She has never seen one before. She reaches out to touch it with two fingers, the way she has been taught to pet animals at the zoo. It is slimy and soft, but not unpleasant to touch. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12,1411],"tags":[1412],"class_list":["post-42748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-science-fiction","category-tcl-18-winter-2016","tag-the-colored-lens-18-winter-2016","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42748"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139543,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42748\/revisions\/139543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nWhat there is of a head. Oh Sophie hates those things, she hates the way their limbs wave helplessly like something underwater, like a sea slug or a kelp plant drifting in a too-strong current.<\/p>\n
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\nSophie kneels in the grass and looks. The sun passes overhead.<\/p>\n
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\nIf he is nearby, or if his car is still driving and will not stop until he is far away. Her ears still ring with the sound of her mother\u2019s sobbing. She tugs at them angrily.<\/p>\n