ENDING TO THE STORY

We didn’t know where Manu had come from. Two Australian trekkers had found him in the Himalayas, deep in the terai, where they probably had no business being but who would question them now that Manu had our attention?

“He was just standing there, sucking his thumb, in the middle of a clearing!” said one of the Australians.

“Clearing?” the police asked. “There are no clearings in this area. It is all wilderness.”

“Exactly!” said the other Australian.

The police had reason to be skeptical. Travelers liked to believe their own fantastic tales. However, one look at Manu had them nodding their heads in instant and staunch belief.

Manu changed many hands and vehicles because the Nepali science community didn’t know what to do with him. They thought the American one would have better luck but it didn’t either. Manu went from the high-security jeep to the National Institute of Wildlife Resources in New Delhi to the International Institute of Biology in Switzerland to the American Species Research Centre in Austin, all while mad phone calls were made to experts around the world. who couldn’t help but get on the next flight and make their way to major American cities, hoping to bungee jump into the action?

“Should we tell the media?” someone must have asked at some point and I am guessing the answer was yet because Manu first went to mainstream news channels and then went viral.

I’m exhausted.

They don’t tell you how lonely it is to work in a lab. My subjects are animals and even after almost two decades of studying animal behavior I haven’t been able to overcome the multi-species language barriers. I should take a break, I think, but I know that’ll make me think about my husband again. I can’t afford that, not when I have a son at home who’d rather lose me to work than to the actions that dance around in my mind.

I rub my eyes. I need eyedrops if I am going to stare at the screen this way. Manu stays in a corner of his enclosure, occasionally twitching, his head down.

Dr. Xiao gives me a start by thrusting his phone in front of my face.

I am calling it a day, Google translate says. Mr. Xiao nods with the words like a marionette doll, his permanent smile pulling at the middle of his chapped lips.

“See you tomorrow,” I say into his phone. Mr. Xiao reads the translation waves goodbye.

Being truly alone alleviates some of the loneliness. Interacting with colleagues has become a multi-step process since Manu’s arrival, what with the limited English-speaking abilities of our new team.

I am scheduled to greet Manu every two hours to monitor his response to humans. His gentleness has some convinced he is a highly endangered domesticated animal, a miracle of sorts. When my alarm rings, I pick up my tablet and make my way down to the high-security basement.

The doors open and there he is. It’s impossible to look at Manu and not marvel. Perhaps that’s what prompted my boss to christen him Manu, meaning “the first of his kind.” He is large, almost reaching up to the ceiling when standing, and we assume he is an adult, but we have never met an adult who can hypnotize other grown-ups into loving them the way Manu can. His soft fur is incandescent under the fluorescent light. It promises of warm, endless hugs. His paws are rounded and claw-less, as though designed only for gently loving. He has no face and yet, his eyes emote enough to render the rest redundant. He looks at me now, his eyes a deep emerald green with no whites, and it’s as though his sorrow has its own hands to come to grip me.

“Hi, Manu,” I say. “How was your day today? Now I know this enclosure isn’t ideal but you know we love you, don’t you?”

Manu stares at me and I record the observation. I move closer to the enclosure in an effort to build trust. Manu continues to stare from his corner. I smile. Manu stays frozen.

Suddenly, Manu’s green eyes turn bluish as they narrow in fear. Before I can run, it comes charging at the walls of the enclosure. I gasp, unmoving. This is what death feels like, I think. This is what he felt like. My husband’s face flashes before my eyes juxtaposed with Manu’s gigantic ferocity and for a second there, I am glad it’s over, that I can join him now.

My body does what my mind cannot. The next thing I know, I am back in my office, panting on the floor.

Manu is not a gentle ball of enigmatic love. He is a monster we’ve baited into a cage he now resents.

*

When my husband died. we were on the train on our way to meet his parents. He complained of heartburn. The old man in the side berth gave him some medicine. An hour later he was dead.

Our six-year-old son was right next to him.

I didn’t cry. I just wondered where the story for this was. I’d read stories of separated lovers. They had feuding families, ongoing wars, and even something as un-dramatic as terminal illness tearing them apart. Where was the story of the woman who lost her husband—her childhood companion, her best friend, her soulmate—on a train with no warning?

I entered a daze I didn’t come out of till one day my son wrapped himself on my body and wailed like he was one again. I had left him without even knowing and it was time to come back. As I held him, I realized why I had looked so hard for a story. Stories came with endings, the one thing my pain never knew.

*

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the animal came from Russia. They’ve been running experiments on genetically modified animals for two decades now, trying to build them into weapons,” says Hutchins. He has an army title—I forget what—and Dr. Robertson, my boss, thought it prudent to invite him over.

“I don’t disagree,” says Dr. Robertson. “However, should our plan of action be to keep the animal in captivity to study his capabilities or believe he is truly one of a kind and, you know…” He trails off.

“You do understand Manu doesn’t speak,” I say. “How would you know what his intentions are?”

“He attacked an unarmed woman,” says Dr. Jablewsky, a middle-aged animal behaviorist from Germany. “Whatever his motivations, he is dangerous.”

Fear has shifted them into defense mode. Manu isn’t a magical creature from the fairylands anymore. He is the newest danger to humanity and needs to be dealt with.

“We need to study his behaviors for the next two weeks,” I say. “We don’t know enough about Manu to take drastic measures. We have put him in an enclosure with no outdoor time. Many other animals would react violently!”

I don’t mention how humanistic Manu’s rage was, like that of a man caged in a forcibly confined in a dingy hole for months.

After a moment of silence, Hutchins agrees. More heads nod, one after the other. I realize Hutchins is now in command and I am, albeit unofficially, just someone carrying out orders.

“I need to inform the Headquarters about these recent developments,” says Hutchins, grabbing his phone in his pockets. He marches out of the room.

My head wants to explode. The pressure inside has been building up since last night. It’s not going away soon.

*

Manu doesn’t have any DNA.

He doesn’t have cells, as we understand them, although slides of his skin did reveal globular building blocks with a clear liquid inside.

X-rays revealed no clear insides. There was just a hard shell with a network of narrow pipes running inside. He is too big for an MRI.

He responds to strong tranquilizers but we don’t know what that means in the absence of, well, anything else.

I watch Manu from the door. He meets my steady gaze but doesn’t attack. Instead, he blinks, as though in apology, and sinks further down into the floor.

I put a note on my tablet that I should’ve recorded days ago but couldn’t bring myself to out of disbelief of the alternatives—that we don’t have any proof that Manu is an animal.

What have we caged in our basement?

*

My son burrows the space between my arm and chest.

“Just a moment, baby,” I say.

He whines. His father’s death has regressed him, both mentally and physically. He is too light for seven, his head is too big, his movements too wobbly.

“I want to watch cartoons,” he says.

I turn my head to bellow to his nanny but he catches my face so I have to face him. “With you,” he demands

I’ve not been off my computer since I got home. He deserves this much. I pick him up and go to the living-room where his nanny has already turned the TV to the KidCity channel.

I turn into a vegetable as I watch the dumb show about the adorable creature who is trying to find his way back home. They don’t show where home is, just that the big-eyed creature is sad. The supporting characters try to help, taking him on adventures on varied landscapes and teaching him (and the audience) human language (also known as English). My son repeats the words and sometimes gets off the sofa to run around the room while doing so, only to plop back into my lap.

They never find the creature’s home.

“He doesn’t belong to our world,” says the drawing of a little girl with bobbed hair and a pink bow on the TV screen. “His home is on a different planet!” This little girl is the space cadet of the group, never quite on the same wavelength as her friends but comfortable in her weirdness. She reminds me of myself at that age. My husband had been my best friend even then, when the other children thought I was bonkers.

As the other cartoon kids roll their eyes at her, I think of Manu.

*

They will kill him.

They will kill him and broadcast the murder with pride. We’ve saved the world, they’ll say.

“Manu,” I say, this time as though he’s my friend. “You miss home, don’t you? It’s too far away.”

Manu watches me till his eyes begin to sparkle, his version of the tears that come from looking at something too long.

“Who lives at home?” I say. “Is it your parents? Your friends? You children?”

I feel myself sinking. It is the pain of separation again, dulled with time but now returning second-hand. How must it be for Manu, so far away from home? How must it be for those he left behind? That question I can answer. Manu’s spirit calls out to me as he stands for the first time since the day we received him.

“Is it your partner?” I say.

He’s picked up our language, the more rational part of me says. This is not an animal. Even parrots, with their affinity to human sounds, can never comprehend the emotions behind words, and here stands Manu, clearly responding to every verbal cue, so much more intelligent since our first meeting.

The rational part of me is, unfortunately, mere background noise.

“I can imagine”, I say. The pressure in my chest begins to loosen as a cry escapes my throat. I collapse to the ground, heaving. I want the tears to stay at bay—they don’t stop once I allow them out—but they’re so tempting.

“The man I loved is in another world, too,” I say. “While I’m still here. I’m still here and it never ends!” My words are barely legible now, coming out in spurts.

“They’ll kill you if you stay,” I say. The adrenaline in my veins is sweet poison. “You need to go back home! You will die here and they’ll never see you again!”

Manu approaches me and puts his paw on the glass. I meet his paw and we face each other, soul to soul.

“It shouldn’t be this way,” I say.

By now I am merely watching the scene happen, controlled by my pain. Manu coohs. With shaking hands, I press the code to let Manu out.

It is a mistake.

His eyes stop sparkling the same instant my rational will returns to me. Manu doesn’t need lips to smirk. He gives me less than a second to make my last wishes. I make none.

Claws emerge from his rounded paw, my last experience of a creature keeping secrets. There’s no innocence in the way he slits the back of my ear all the way down to where my collarbones meet.

“Manu,” I whisper, but he is already running away, alarms blaring.

The substance keeping me alive begins to leave me before I hear the horrified screams and urgent footsteps. I let go of the last branch of hope, too easily perhaps. My life doesn’t flash before my eyes. Instead, the fluorescence of the overheads gets blurrier.

So, this was the ending to my story, I think before even my thoughts are lost, the most peaceful last thought I could have asked for.