Remarkably Bright Creatures

by Shelby Van Pelt

How delicate those wounds were back then, how little it took to nudge the scabs out of place and start the bleeding anew.

sometimes she still feels as if she’s a mistaken jigsaw piece who found her way into the wrong puzzle.

Tova wonders sometimes if it’s better that way, to have one’s tragedies clustered together, to make good use of the existing rawness. Get it over with in one shot. Tova knew there was a bottom to those depths of despair. Once your soul was soaked though with grief, any more simply ran off, overflowed, the way maple syrup on Saturday-morning pancakes always cascaded onto the table whenever Erik was allowed to pour it himself.

Why can humans not use their millions of words to simply tell one another what they desire?

I held a copy of this one when I was very young. Before my capture. It was attached to a circular ring at the bottom of the sea, nestled within a trove of what could only be described as leftover human. Not bones and flesh, of course, as those never last long, but rather a rubber sneaker sole, a vinyl shoelace. Several plastic buttons, as from a shirt. Swept together under a clump of rocks and preserved there. It must belong to the one she mourns.

Ah, to be a human, for whom bliss can be achieved by mere ignorance! Here, in the kingdom of animals, ignorance is dangerous. The poor herring dropped into the tank lacks any awareness of the shark lurking below. Ask the herring whether what he doesn’t know can hurt him.

but I can tell you this: the boy has no genetic relationship with the man. The father is a cuckold.

unaware of the treason that will one day cleave their family.

But the former cleaning woman and her replacement. They walk alike.

But you would do well to believe me when I tell you this: the young male who has recently taken over sanitation duties is a direct descendant of the cleaning woman with the injured foot.

It’s like a monster with hundreds of long fingers is gripping the edge of the continent, tendrils of deep blue cutting channels through the dark green countryside in every unexpected way.

Humans are the only species who subvert truth for their own entertainment.

It won’t be long now. This is true. I can feel my very cells struggling to carry out their typical functions. Tomorrow, a new month begins, and perhaps it will be the last time I notice that Terry has flipped the calendar on his wall. My inevitable end draws near.