They are unbeknownst; unspoken; un-named; unreal.
They cannot be realised by logical conception. Any information we ingest undermines all attempts at reconstruction. They are held within the physics of disorder; the concepts of chaos; the structure of delirium.
They are The Ones Unknown. Their existence scrambles the intent of our sensory organs and manifests as mass confusion at their most understood. They are the Gods of Entropy.
And my 4 year old just summoned one.
My daughter Arly has a very experiential approach to living; she loves to squish mud in her hands; she refuses to wear her shoes, preferring to feel the ground beneath her feet; she’ll play with umbrellas in the sun, and discard her clothes to run around in the rain. She likes to question everything and prefers her own path, rarely following the lead of others.
She’s my pride and joy.
She also has a mind that soaks up information as the Sahara soaks up rainfall. Her favourite shows are almost all exploratory and experimental: Creative Galaxy, Emily’s Wonder Lab, Magic School Bus. She loves telling me about the new thing she learned that day, and astounds me with her insight and curiosity.
One of her favourite pastimes, a thing that often drives me crazy and makes me smile both, is her penchant for what she calls “making potions”. She’ll get a container (a bucket, a bowl, a coffee cup, my wife’s favourite vase; nothing is sacrosanct), put a little water in, and begin adding ingredients.
Some of the ingredients are sanctioned. We have some soaps or shampoos we never ended up using that we gave her. We purchased some fizzy bath powder that adds a bubbly effect for her. Sometimes I’ll get involved, and provide a few drops of food colouring, or some salt, or some tea leaves we have mouldering in our top cupboard. Sometimes her choices of ingredients aren’t so sanctioned: she’s helped herself to half a bottle of my contact fluid, once; she’s used a whole tube of toothpaste; a goodly amount of my wife’s best perfume; half of the container of flour we kept in our pantry (which now resides beside the tea leaves). I know its our job to monitor her, but I DO believe in giving her some level of autonomy; the parenting choices we all must make.
Over time, though, she’s developed a sort of routine with her ingredients. She began insisting on specific items, most of which were sanctioned, so we saw no reason not to provide her with a supply; they’re less expensive than toys, or the markers she keeps killing. She even became particular with the order of ingredients that she adds.
When I asked her why she’s become so particular she responded “‘cuz it’s the best way to make the magic happen, Daddy!”
Whatever works. It’s her potion, after all.
She would spend longer and longer on the potions as well. The last time I think she was using the bathroom sink for almost two hours, carefully adding this and that in intentional amounts. She was making far less mess than usual now, so I couldn’t complain (unless one of us had to go wee).
The most recent time, though, was different. She’d been in there for almost two and a half hours, and didn’t show any signs of stopping. I was engrossed in a report I needed to finish for Monday. The Mrs. was out running errands, and taking some time for herself.
Suddenly I heard a small crash! from the bathroom, and immediately after a frantic yelling of “Daddy, ow!”
Shit. My heart lept into my chest.
I flew to the bathroom and was greeted by the sight of broken glass and a tear-filled face. She had broken my wife’s hand mirror, and had apparently cut herself on one of the shards.
My fear was replaced by anger, that I quickly suppressed; it would not help at all in this situation.
“Oh no! Baby girl…here, we need to wash that cut so it doesn’t get infected.”
She blanched, of course.
“No Daddy is gonna hurt!”
“I know, baby girl, but we have to keep away the infection bugs, right?”
She nodded grimly. My strong little girl.
Her potion was sitting in the sink, and the sight of it took me aback. It was a chalky green, and bubbling faintly, as if on the boil. It was unsettling. It wasn’t hot to the touch, though. Weird. Setting it aside, I ran the water and helped her wash the cut on her finger.
“Daddy’s going to grab a bandaid from the cupboard, ok? It’s not a deep cut. You’ll be just fine!”
She nodded dourly, sniffling. “The Dora the Explorer ones?”
I smiled and nodded back. I set her on the toilet cover and left to grab a Dora bandaid. Upon returning I saw that she was holding her finger over her still-bubbling potion, trying to add one more unsanctioned ingredient to the mix. “No! Honey, what are you-“
The instant the drop of blood hit the roiling green liquid it turned black as pitch and there came a sudden, terrible, crushing pressure, like the weight of mountains, like the weight of oceans. Words failed me; I couldn’t form them; I couldn’t breathe! Everything…trembled. It vibrated and crackled like the slow shattering of glass, the crashing of lightning on glaciers, rock wrent to crumbling by screams of anguish. I could hear them; I could feel them, in my heart, in my bones. In my head. Something pushed; bent; warped, a heat haze shimmer, but bulging, splitting the space between us.
Something broke through the shimmer that wasn’t an arm, and it did not have long sinewy digits tipped by vicious gut-wrenching claws. It wasn’t there and it hesitated before gripping the edges of the hole in reality and pushed, widening it with a sound of tearing flesh and canvas; the world screaming in agony as I tried to scream with it.
I couldn’t move but I fell to my knees in forced supplication and was terrified as an entity that didn’t exist forced its way into my bathroom. It was vast; it was immeasurable; it was the size of continents and planets and atoms and sin; it was exactly the size of Arly. It was angry and sharp and hungry and leathery and most definitely not there as I could not feel its infinite ultraviolet gaze boring into my skull and forsaking my existence to a litany of pain.
It whispered, and I trembled. It spoke, and I could feel myself fraying as my mind reeled and tumbled into unmaking. I shook. I shivered. I absolutely vibrated with abject despair. I pissed myself. It knew me and I didn’t know it as it wasn’t there because it could not exist as it condemned my uni-dimensional visage.
This entity regarded me, pondering my unmaking: it turned, or it didn’t. And knelt down in front of my four year old daughter.
A voice like a supernova whispered in a language that made my eyes ache. It spoke, directly to Arly:
(WHAT IS THY BIDDING, MY MASTER?)
I wept. This entity had been summoned by the blood of my four year old; now, it served her.
Parenting just became a lot more difficult.