“The First Birthday”
For Squish
Little Professor, they call him, his family. He tucks his hands behind his back and walks slightly slumped forward, like an aging professor giving lecture. His Aunt buys him a tiny pair of monocles and the plastic is rough on his one year old face and hard against his fat, little nose and stabs the soft spot behind his pliable little ears, but they laugh, and slightly scare him with bright flashes of light. Say cheese, they say, grinning like fools. He takes off the glasses in his fat little hand and chews on the rim. Bits of black flake off and his Aunt, who giveth, taketh away.
He is naked, except for a diaper. He touches the doughy warmth of his stomach, fingering the pink, suckering scar that seemed to appear one morning, after waking up from a deep, unsettling sleep. It hurt, made him cry, made him itch, but now it’s a mound of rounded, healing flesh. He touches it with his wet finger and it changes color. His brother and his cousin dance around him, zooming cars and racing them along the wooden side-table that lies against the window. The room smells like apples and his mouth waters.
His Mother picks him up and takes him from the room, the rest of his family following. She sits in a chair, in front of a cake, the sweet smell distracting and alluring. Happy Birthday, they sing, flashing lights and laughter and cheers, but he is mesmerized by the sweet, cloudy-thick frosting, puffing up in multiple colored ridges, not dissimilar to his own scar. He touches the frosting, but it doesn’t change color; instead it indents, his finger disappearing in the sticky sweet. In the center is a single hot, orange flame, dancing on a candy-stripped stem, dripping wax. He reaches towards it with intense fascination before a gust of air from his Mother’s mouth snuffs it out.
His Mother takes a bit of frosting and dips it on his tongue. It is so startling sweet, he forgets about his missing finger, about the vanishing flame, drawing his hand to his mouth, large fists of dark, red cake crumbling to the floor. They let him eat, let him stuff his rounded cheeks full, until drool stains his chin and his chest and his rounded tummy with long, stringy drips of diluted red.
Fingers wind around his slender arms, his mother holding him tightly. He looks around, dazed from the consuming task of eating, to find the room empty. He touches the side of her face; she doesn’t smile, looking off. He smells something, something like the graying smoke from the candle, but stronger, thicker, darker. His mother rises, holding him tightly by his waist. His family appears as quickly as they vanished, but they are not smiling, they are not singing.
His cousin is crying. His brother his crying. Their hands leave black, sooty prints on the door as they are ushered out through the garage, into the yard. The room is hot, his mother coughs. They follow behind them and he winds a fistful of his mother’s hair in his hand in quiet fright as darkness, as thin as air, but thick with menacing life, emanates, swirling towards them with bubbling, outstretched claws.
His family gathers in the front yard. He watches the scary, black smoke fill the house, room to room, becoming one with the clear, dark sky as it rises. A noise, a boom, shatters glass and his shock. His face crumples, his vision blurring with thick, panicky tears and he hides his face in the scratchy wool of his Mother’s sweater. From behind his barely open eyelids, he watches the licking flames rise up, blossoming like a blistering, orange flower from the window, seemingly devouring the house in one tremendous, monstrous chomp.
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