11-01-04 The creature was conceived in August 2003, nourished in its amniotic sac all throughout the first half of 2004, and popped out of its host on October 20, 2004. It opened its eyes, weary from being jostled the previous three days and nights, on Friday, October 22, 2004. Only a few were watching. Most left early, or were turned away because it looked so ugly. On the next day, Saturday, most of its torrid grey extra skin and fluids had been wiped clean. Some of the people who said they’d be there to help with the birth and raising of this child actually did show up. On Monday, as the Good Doctor kept his vigil over the sleeping creature, certain powerful, religio-political entities spewed false, terrorific news to him and millions of others that children should not attend the birth and raising of the Good Doctor’s child, nor anything similar. The masses were commanded not to indulge in the beauty of the other half of light; no celebrating of the changing of seasons. They were told that terrorists would poison children’s candy, and other horrific political lies.
All through this, the creature child rested, content, until Friday, October 29, when it was awoken to show its promising glory. A few outsiders attended, along with a few of the Good Doctor’s close friends, but, as written above, most shied away. A few small children ran aimlessly (despite the Doctor’s orders to stay put, and only when necessary, to run aimfully) throughout the town, but helped when they could settle down and focus for a few minutes at a time. The Doctor looked on patiently, benignly. T he nursery was bedlam, a mirrorry, cobwebbed attic of the Doctor’s tortured, frantic, earnest and honest but malunderstood past. But this was the time of rebirth. Redemption. A time to eat.
Saturday, the eve of the millenia-old, brightly, gaily colored celebration of The Change, saw a few more outsiders. They were mystified at the beauty of the creature child. There were other creature children about the Valley, but this one they realized was created out of love, not out of money. Yet, as the child and its father looked on, it became apparent that people were falling for what was being demanded of them by the shadowy kings who controlled the world of one-way modes of communication. Had the creature been born ten years earlier, thousands of celebrants would have attended.
Sunday, October 31, the most joyful, most important, most life-affirming day to many across the land, saw a few score of revelers. These revelers had spent the entire day flitting from town to town, creature to creature, and having finally seen this fantastic creature child, rejoiced, but it echoed hollowly in the sadness caused by the masses’ fear, complacency, excuses (“I would have loved to have seen this marvel you speak of, but alas, I must work on the morrow” and “…but the cost of travel is too high; it would cost over a gallon of fuel to attend!”) and worst of all, the masses’ deep, unknown-but-felt sentiment that they had killed their own child within themselves, letting the child drown as they drifted down the grey current of “adulthood.”
Some gave all; a few gave more than that, and some gave none, opting only to take. The creature closed its eyes.
