The Little Things

Two weeks after she went missing, I found Arà's shed skin out in the yard where I'd piled some old broken furniture. She'd gone AWOL numerous times before, but this was the longest she'd stayed missing. Three days later, a big bad boy paid the chicken coop over at my neighbour's a surprise visit and paid for the surprise with his life. I'd snatched aside my bedroom curtains and peered through the glass over the demarcating hedge at the thick of the commotion. Afterwards, in a cold sweat, I went over and asked to see the body. But they'd already burned it. I got a stick and poked at the stiff blackened remains. Minis like my Arà were probably on the menu for biggies like him. So I poked till I punched a hole in the thick middle. All I uncovered was bad barbeque. I trudged off back to my flat then, back to my MacBook. I had an online class to conduct. I was behind schedule on my Google Calendar. My mind was in disarray, but I had a living to earn. I was getting on when I thought I heard something.

With my finger paused over the ENTER key, I cocked my head and listened. It was very quiet, very still, in the house. With the lockdown it was quiet out in the street, too. There it was again: a slight, smooth rustling sound. I rose from the sofa I sat in and tiptoed barefoot over the cool tiles and over to the lacy curtains that screened the dining room. There she was: a silhouette strung high up in the latticework of the material.

I stood staring. My hand shook and I brushed off a tear. I reached out and took her gently by the middle. But she'd sort of belly-gripped the lace and wouldn't let go. 'Come on baby,' I cooed, 'Mummy has really miss--!' I snatched my hand away, laughing. I looked to see blood beading in the arc between my thumb and fore-finger. She hadn't done that in such a long, long time it was jarring. Again she drew blood. I persisted. Finally she came away. Degree by lower degree, she quieted down. With both of us calmed, I headed for the vivarium.

The vivarium was backed against one wall in Lumun's old room. I'd taken down the two pictures that hung there. The rectangles of their frames were still etched in the cream of the paint. The largest of these was a pencil sketch I'd made of me and him and the boy and girl as I anticipated the twins would look when maybe three. Then the miscarriage came. Nothing was the same afterwards. Two years on, we'd gone our separate ways.

I got Arà from a friend who was a park ranger with the Millennium Wildlife Park. A stray, he'd called her. She was maybe a month old at the time. This was our second year together. In her noiseless, unobtrusive way, Arà had come to mean more to me than the hypothetical boy and girl. Would Arà have been, though, if the foetuses had made it to infancy? I left it at that. What was the point anyway.

Then I found I hadn't cleaned the vivarium. I hadn't in a week. The rocks I'd put in had grown fuzzy with fungus. Ben, a neighbour, had warned me not to put any in there. He was an old hand in the business and he and I were whispered about as the weirdos of Basil Street. The water in the bowl had a visible skin. A spider had been busy and had woven a thick web over the entry into Arà's hideaway log. Sanitation, obviously. But where was I to keep her while I was at it? The empty carton of crackers. It was down in the kitchen store.

I got it and took it to the dining room. I spread an old shirt over the bottom and and laid Arà in. I also put a cup of water in and placed it close to the big stab that regulated power to the fridge. I closed the top. I washed my hands, and was headed back to my laptop when I remembered Arà's vivarium.

I was caught in two minds. The vivarium first, or work? Neither could wait. I was behind at work. The students must've complained. The principal had called me twice now on this sore point. I was falling behind in my career, failing with Arà as I'd failed with love. I sagged against the wall and shut my eyes. 'Breathe Ava,' I told myself. 'Breathe.' Moments elapsed. Steadier now, I opened my eyes and stared before me. A bit of work first; then Arà's quarters.

At my laptop, I finished creating the day's class on my Google Drive and sent out invitations to the students whose profiles were automatically uploaded from the school directory. It was a Mechanics class with focus on Projectiles. I wanted us to look at projectiles that described semi-arcs upon discharge. But I hadn't graded assignments from the two previous classes. I paused, sighed. Well... so I got busy checking, grading. But what if Arà was hungry? I graded the next student then I rose.

I checked on Arà. She lay curled up in a corner. She seemed content. Good. I hurried on and got a brush and other necessary stuff and got busy with the vivarium.

Twenty minutes on, I was done. I stood back and examined my work. Cool, I thought. I went to get Arà.

But she wasn't in the carton! I raised the shirt, raised the carton. I looked behind the fridge, beneath it. I checked the curtains, my basket of laundry. I turned the house inside out. No Arà. I went outdoors, calling, looking in the flower bed, in the hedges. I looked until the light began to fail.

Back in the house, I did a second round of checking. I found her with a hard belly bump behind my sheaf of old magazines in the store. Maybe the bump was a mouse or gecko. I lifted her, took the third bite for the day, and relocated her back to the vivarium.

I put her in the log and stood watching for a long time. I swayed a little. At last I turned away. I went back to the living room and shut down my MacBook. I switched of the telly, the lights. And blocking my mind to all objectivity, fell asleep on the sofa.