Sockeaters

The winter has always made me feel like I only half exist, and this winter was making me feel even ghostlier than usual. Summer had quickly transformed into Autumn, the cold magic of Halloween had come and gone in a flash, and the New Year was approaching like a speeding train. It was now the middle of winter, and I was spending my days floating from the kitchen to the living room couch, unemployed and unhopeful.

At the beginning of Fall my younger sister, Caroline, recently divorced and pregnant, had moved to Washington to move into a small house with me. I had just graduated college with a lucrative degree in visual art and creative writing, so we were a perfect match. I needed financial help and she needed a loving presence in her home. And as a creative type I’m naturally good at loving (and cooking and housekeeping), and she’s naturally good at paying the bills.

“Any job prospects yet?” Caroline asked on December 26th.

“I have some ideas brewing.” I lied.

“Great, cause paying your portion of the rent by cooking our dinners isn’t gonna last forever, Franky.”

My sister is a generous person, but only to a point. And I was feeling her resentment towards my situation growing alongside the mysterious child in her tummy.

“Don’t worry about it sis. I’ll have a job by time the baby gets here. As promised.”

But Caroline must have been determined to prove me wrong. The next day we fell extremely ill, both waking up with identical symptoms. We had dry, sandpapery tongues, intense pain in our shoulder blades, skin that itched from head to toe, and a sensitivity to light that made us practically blind all day long. Once the sun set, Caroline went to take a bath by candlelight, and when she came out her pregnant belly was no more. Instead she was carrying a giant egg in its place. Neither of us felt sick anymore.

The doctors were, of course, confused, but they instructed her to treat it like any momma bird would treat an egg. She was to keep the egg in a papoose beneath her breasts and under her clothing as she went about her days, and at night to curl around it in a fetal position and not let go. Four weeks later the giant egg began to hatch. I still didn't have a job.

My sister's “child” hatched as a fully grown barn owl that she named Sockeater, since it kept swooping down from the shelves to grab unsuspecting socks that we had the habit of leaving on the floor. When I asked her why she would name her offspring such a ridiculous name, she replied, “I honestly can’t accept that this is my actual offspring, that my child wasn’t switched and ended up in the belly of an owl… If I gave Sockeater a proper name, I’m afraid it would feel too much like my actual child. And that would just be a little… much for me.”

But I can’t even bear when normal, non human born animals are called ridiculous names, let alone one that might share my DNA. So I secretly named and referred to her as Sarah, and we bonded instantly.

My sister was thrilled to see that I was taking to the bird child and looking after her, and stopped asking me about finding a job. She seemed relieved to have someone to cook the meals and take care of the child. I had become some strange, yet proud type of house wife.

I built perches for Sarah Sockeater all over our small rented house, and she began to sleep in my room. At first she would nestle onto the peg I put in the corner, half grabbing hold with her talons and half leaning against the wall. But soon she began hopping down onto my bed and clawing at the covers. Now we sleep cuddled up with each other, her wing wrapped around my shoulder as she coos like an angelic pigeon.

When spring came and Sarah was a couple of months old, we began to hear the news of the other children. All over the world single women were giving birth to animals, and the term “anibaby” was coined. Turns out most of them were also being adopted by the homosexual brothers and friends of the mothers.

This soon led to the creation of an app called “Anibaby Playdate”, where the guardians of the human born animals could find other anibabies nearby to befriend. I joined it immediately, as I had hardly left the house since the previous summer, and both Sarah and myself were dying to get out and socialize.

The first anibaby I found in my town was a chinchilla named Lukey Licky Larson, and his guardian was a handsome, young twink guy named Andrew. I knew we all had to meet asap.

Now, Andrew and I chatted online for weeks beforehand, trying to feel out each other and figure out how our children would interact. We obviously discussed the fact that Sarah was a predatory barn owl and Lukey was a large rodent (AKA large owl breakfast). But in the end we felt that there was no way a barn owl would try to eat something so large, and that there was no way this fateful online connection we felt could bring harm.

And so I walked Sarah Sockeater and I over to Andrew and Lukey’s dingy little apartment. They were both even more adorable in person. Lukey was soft and cuddly, and Andrew was pure hearted and sparkly with a youthful energy that I couldn't take my eyes away from. For two hours we chatted playfully as we gradually introduced our children, letting Sarah’s leash get longer and longer until Lukey finally went up to her and gave her a nuzzle. Sarah nuzzled back, and so did Andrew.

Within seconds of our children making contact we had also made contact, and before I knew it Andrew was deep inside of me. It had been six months since I had been with anyone, and a whole lifetime waiting for it to feel like this. We kissed furiously and stared into each other's eyes the entire time, until eventually we finished simultaneously: him inside of my tummy and me on top of it, like a 3D x-ray of where his sweet sperm now resided.

“Wow. That was something else.” Andrew said in a dazed, cum dumb voice. And then he laid on top of me so that we both had to turn our heads, cheek to cheek, and that's when we saw it.

We weren’t the only ones that had made a mess. Sarah and Lukey had been in a passionate, animalistic embrace of their own. Except this one had been driven by hunger, not by lust. Lukey had vanished, and the front of Sarah was covered in blood.

Andrew blamed me, of course, saying that I should have kept a better watch over my child, even though he obviously didn’t have a very good watch on his own. In a rage he had flung Sarah and I out of his apartment, and we walked home in the gentle spring rain, Sarah leaving a faint trail of red behind us on the sidewalk.

Three dark, rainy months went by and I holed up with Sarah once again, not daring to open the Anibaby Playdate App (or any other social app for that matter). I had accepted my fate as a lonely single owl dad, and was happy that I at least had been given that.

I also began to also lose touch with the happenings of the outside world, as social media was how I had gotten my news before, and trying to connect with humans seemed pointless now. Now I had Sarah, and that was enough. Even Caroline had practically stopped talking to me, saying that I had become more like a nocturnal barn owl than her brother. But I didn’t mind, I knew that Sarah was my responsibility now, and her love was more constant and sure than that of any human I had ever known.

But then Andrew called, apologizing through a strained voice that told me he was probably holding back tears. “I never should have blamed you and said such hurtful things to you… especially after the intensity we shared. I honestly can’t stop thinking about what happened… and I’m not talking about what happened to Lukey.”

“What are you talking about then, Andrew?”

“I’m talking about what happened to us, Frank.” I could hear tears now. “I think I need you. I’ve hardly left my apartment since that day”

“Andrew, how could we ever have something healthy when my child killed your child? It would taint our whole relationship.” I could hardly believe how logical I was being.

“But Frank, haven’t you been watching the news. Our story isn’t unique.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Gays all over the world have come out telling their stories about their anibabies eating one another!” It sounded like his tears had stopped.

“Really? I didn't know... That’s awful!”

“But it's not, Frank! All of the daddies fell in love anyways… Discovered they were soulmates.”

My heartstrings felt tugged, but I still couldn't grapple with it. “That’s ridiculous, Andrew. Yes, we had a good round of sex, but that doesn’t mean we’re soulmates. I mean, come on. What would happen? You want to move in with me and the owl that ate your child?”

“Well, technically it was a chinchilla, not my actual child.” He paused and cleared his voice. “And technically Sarah isn’t yours either. She’s a barn owl, Frank.”

“I can’t believe what you’re saying!” I exploded, “I can’t believe how much you’ve changed. You said Lukey was your child and your everything… I thought we understood each other, but I guess I was wrong. Don’t call me again, Andrew.”

“But Frank...”

And I hung up. And I wasn’t even sad about it. I went over to Sarah and wrapped her in my arms and she wrapped me in her wings, and we both cooed like little angel pigeons. And then I released her lunch; a big white mouse, running to and fro inside of a large chicken wire pen that I had recently built in our living room. And Sarah swooped down quickly and ate it. And we were happy all morning.