Kristine Muslim - Age of Blight - Stories

By the time Dominic was eating dinner, the fingers were twitching for the first time, feeling the air of the small fenced backyard that was silent in the stifling late-summer heat. The fingers were fully exposed, the wrist visible.

The first thing that Dominic did a few minutes after waking up was to check up on the fingers in the backyard. Sensing Dominic, the thing stirred — no, no, waved — as it was visible to the elbow now. Dominic, who remained curious because fear was still far off, grasped the hand sprouting from the ground. That was when he noticed that the hand was exactly as big as his own. And upon closer inspection, he could say for sure that it was a duplicate of his left hand — complete with the scab from a scratch he sustained when he hit the pavement while learning to balance a bicycle. “What are you?” he muttered.

So, for days turning to weeks — while the other Dominic grew in the backyard — six-year-old, real-life Dominic went through his usual dealings with the adults in his household. There’s his mother repeatedly promising to see what had become of the fingernail clippings and then forgetting what she promised afterward, what with the bills coming in at the end of the month and the office politics with her new supervisor at Station Tower Mutual. And Nancy, the burned-out and exhausted Aunt Nancy, who worked night shifts as a part-time nurse while studying for med school, crashed out on the couch every afternoon, snoring, snoring this life away — this suburban life with so much to do and so much to become. Outside real-life Dominic’s little house, beyond the small backyard where fingernail clippings could grow into human beings, people frittered away too, their life stories being read both as allegories and as cautionary tales. Everywhere, the dirty rooms of unaired small homes, the porches growing rickety with the trampings of the desperate.

School would start next month, and Dominic hoped that the other Dominic in the backyard would hurry up and finish growing. He was excited and scared, not knowing what the other Dominic wanted (because of course, the Other would want something, for if there is one thing a six-year-old knows, it’s that there is nothing that exists without wanting). The not-knowing gnawed at the real-life Dominic. He wished that the other Dominic would talk. Upper torso visible now, the other Dominic had yet to open his eyes, although his hands would twitch, would respond to touch, would grasp back when clutched. The signs of life of this Other were all there — steady pulse, slow intakes of breath, the sheen of sweat on the forehead, the occasional twitching.

Once, Dominic’s mother had gone to the backyard to replace the bottom of the barbecue grill, which was propped right next to the spot where the Other was slowly emerging. Holding his breath with anticipation, or possibly even pride for the Other he had brought into the world, Dominic asked his mother if she had seen the other Dominic.

“The what?” she probed. “What are you talking about?”

“The other Dominic, the one who grew out of my fingernail clippings. I’ve been telling you about him for weeks now.”

“Oh,” she said, uneasiness sinking into her voice. “Well, I haven’t seen anything. Do you mean the mound of soil near the grill? Have you been digging around in that dirt all this time?”

“You mean you didn’t see the other me?”

“No, honey, I didn’t. Are you feeling okay?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” Dominic said, weighing the possibility that his mother’s inattention was the reason for her not noticing what was so clearly growing in the ground. But it was a small yard, he thought, and the grill was just a few feet away from the area where his double was situated. Perhaps the reason nobody else could see the Other was that it was rightfully his. That night he mulled over the incident in bed, and when his thoughts strayed into deducing what his Other wanted, he finally began to grow afraid. When at last it was morning and it was time to check up again on the Other’s progress, Dominic saw that his double was completely exposed down to the knees. The Other’s eyes were still closed, the posture sentinel-like, feigning inattention. For the first time, Dominic felt very alone in all of this.

Later that day, he lured the barely-awake Nancy to the backyard by faking an emergency. Dominic positioned himself right next to the Other and then screamed as hard as he could. Nancy, scrambling out of her stupor in the couch and steadying herself by holding on to the screen door that led out to the small, fenced backyard, found Dominic with an expectant expression on his face.

“Oh God, Dominic! You gave me quite a scare there,” she said. “I thought you were hurt.”

“Don’t you see him , Aunt Nancy?”

“What, what?”

“Him?”

“Who? What are you talking about?”

That was when Dominic realized the Other was definitely not visible to other people. “Nah, I’m just, I’m just kidding,” he mumbled. “Sorry, sorry. It was a spider — it’s gone now.”

“Okay,” Nancy said. She was vaguely aware of the boy hiding something from her, but she was too tired and sleepy to protest. She made a mental note to talk to his mother when she got home tonight. “I’ll be in the living room if you need anything.”

“Sure, Aunt Nancy.” He glanced at the Other next to him, the silent, unmoving one, the invisible one who was still anchored to the ground. When Nancy retreated back to the house, Dominic once again marveled at his double’s resemblance to him. How he wished it would say something.

That night, Dominic’s mother carefully treaded around the subject of her son’s imaginary playmate. Gently, she tried to make him understand the absurdity of his fingernails growing into another Dominic. “Now, do you want to know why your Aunt Nancy and I can’t see it? It’s because it’s not real.”

“Then how come I can see it? I can touch it. Come, let me show you.”

“No,” she tried to be firm, not wanting to encourage him, and recognizing the adult world’s hypocrisy at the same time. Kids weren’t expected to question the existence of Santa Claus. “Finish your dinner and then wash up. Let’s read something tonight.”

Dominic brightened up instantly with the prospect of a bedtime story. It was the last time his mother would see her six-year-old smile like that.

At eight the next morning he remembered to check up on his double’s progress in the backyard. As he neared the kitchen screen door that opened out to the backyard, he heard Aunt Nancy happily talking on the phone, the approaching ice cream truck’s melodic tones, the muffled swish of shrubbery whose tops were being trimmed by the neighbor’s hedge cutters.

The scene did not register at first, but when it did, Dominic was overcome with awe. His double was completely free of the earth, standing on the loose soil that once held him back. The ground underneath his feet was stomped flat. He wore exactly what the real-life Dominic wore — a yellow cotton T-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms. And the eyes, those same Dominic eyes, were open. When at last Dominic met his double’s gaze, he felt a strong yet painless tug, as if he were a prone weight being forcibly lifted, and a flood of warmth along the extremities. Then there was a momentary blur. Dominic found himself standing on the spot where he first buried his fingernail clippings. He couldn’t move. Soil covered his feet up to the ankles. What was once curiosity quickly turned to panic. Then later fear, the only real fear Dominic would ever have the chance to know, and finally, understanding. The last thing Dominic saw before his eyes grew heavy and he had to close them was the back of his double’s yellow T-shirt heading to the kitchen screen door. The Other entered his house where his Aunt Nancy was still happily talking on the phone, the house around which he last heard the ice cream truck’s melodic tones fading as the vehicle neared the bend and the muffled swish of shrubbery whose tops were being trimmed by the neighbor’s hedge cutters.