The Weeping Thing

Once he was safe in his room, Donald locked the door and placed the bowl on his desk. He stared at the thing, but with all the blood and dirt on it, he couldn't make out heads or tails of it.

Reluctantly, he left the bedroom and went into the bathroom, where Margaret kept the dirty clothes hamper. After digging through it, he found a used hand towel, one he'd tossed in just a couple of days before, one that the old woman was sure not to miss.

He ran some cool water over it, before he went back into his room and began wiping off the thing in the bowl. Even when he'd gotten it completely cleaned off, he still couldn't figure out what it was. It had no eyes, nose, mouth or ears, or any other feature he could discern. It was a simple clump of meat.

A clump of meat that sings its own little sad lullaby, he recalled.

"Well, you must need water, at least." Donald decided, wringing the towel over it and forcing a few drops to evacuate and land on the thing. "And food, too, even though I've no idea what to feed you, or even how to feed you."

Donald went into the kitchen and hurriedly made a sandwich. He took extra slices of meat, cheese, and a small portion of lettuce, knowing Margaret would probably make a scene over how much he was eating, for she kept irritatingly close tabs on everything in the fridge.

"Stupid old woman." Donald mumbled at her memory, as he went back to his room.

Before he ate his sandwich, he deliberated how to feed his creature, his thing. He solved the problem by draping the slices of cheese and meat on the inside edge of the small bowl. The lettuce he dropped directly beside the thing, but if it could eat such food, it was in no hurry to do so while he was watching.

Later, he heard Margaret announcing that she'd come home by making noise all over the house, and he reluctantly put the salad bowl under his bed, beside his shoes, and in a spot he doubted very much the old woman would bother to look into unless he gave her provocation to.

Donald made a couple of public appearances around the house, as he usually did, and he did this mostly to deter any suspicions Margaret might think up. The last time he'd stayed in his room too long, the old hag had accused him of having a woman in there with him, and she'd threatened to kick him out until he allowed her to inspect the bedroom. He'd had to bite his tongue that time, after Margaret had come up empty-handed.

The rest of the time, he was in his room, studying the thing from different angles, whispering to it whenever he thought he could get away with it, whenever it sounded as if Margaret was on the far side of the house. The thing divulged none of its secrets to him.

With some reluctance, Donald made ready for bed. He had another short shift coming up the next morning, and he went through his customary routines of taking a late shower and shaving, and after, he set up his work clothes and shoes in their usual place. He went on to check his email, discovering that he didn't have any new messages from any females dying to meet him, or from anybody else for that matter.

Afterward, he went browsing through a few sites dedicated to bizarre sightings and strange animals. He'd been hoping someone else might have come across a weeping thing, as he had, but if they had they sure hadn't posted anything about it. He'd become engrossed in a conspiracy site, reading a thread called 'Weird Things Seen In The Woods,' and he was reading up on all the anomalies up until the moment the clock demanded that he call it a night.

Donald took one last look at his weeping thing, before he went to bed. It was still there, sitting idle with its slices of cheese and meat nearby, with the lettuce parked on its side.

"Well, I guess it's good night, then." Donald said, as he slid the bowl back under the bed, reached out and clicked off the lamp.

That night, Donald again dreamed that he was in the woods. He wasn't running this time, simply standing among all the tall and dark trees, and he'd looked up toward their branches and saw dozens and dozens of crows staring down at him.

He shuddered, for this time he was unarmed, and if the black horde descended on him all at once, he had no doubt that they would overwhelm him. Already, he imagined the crows lashing their wings in frenzy, and screaming out their sinister caws. In his mind, he saw himself flailing his arms out savagely, trying to batter them all away, but the persistent murderers were diving in at him, embedding their talons and beaks into his weak flesh. Biting and ripping away at his soft parts: his eyes, his ears, and when he tried to scream, his mouth and tongue...

He heard the weeping thing. It was singing a song, but not the usual cold lament of before. Instead, it was an unwavering hum of contentment, a single note that seemed to urge the evil crows into leaning away from it, and from Donald. The weeping thing was protecting him, Donald soon realized.

He dropped his gaze from the treetops, perhaps hoping to find another stick to arm himself with, or perhaps to try and locate where the weeping thing was in his dream, and that's when he saw the women.

He saw half a dozen of them, all young and barely clothed, pale of skin and buoyant with natural beauty. They wore crowns woven of flowers and stems on their heads, and on their bodies, flowing and open wraps of gossamer. The nymphs playfully skipped around him, smiling and blowing kisses in his direction, and holding their breasts out as if they were offering them to him.

As the lovelies began a dance around him, the lonely and dejected Donald longed to reach for one of them, to grasp them within his arms and embrace them, and to shower them with those kisses that he'd kept to himself for so long. He did reach out, only to have the targeted nymph dart away with a cascade of giggles. A moment later, she came back to the circle of beauties, making seductive eyes at him and enticingly pressing her breasts together, as if she wanted him to go for her again.

They were teasing him, Donald knew, but they weren't being malicious about it. The women were all smiling and laughing with one another as they danced around him. They were smiling at him, too, and in his delight, Donald found that he was smiling and laughing along with them. He snatched out his arms a couple more times, but always, they would scurry just out of his reach.

What would happen, he wondered, if he happened to be quick enough to snare one?

He wondered another thing, also. In that first dream, when he was being chased down by the mob, he'd been Donald the man, but he'd also been the mysterious weeping thing. And here, with all these half-nude women around, which was he? Donald, or the weeping thing? Or was he some hybrid consciousness of both?

The song went on, as Donald's thoughts went back to the sensual dancers around him, and instead of dwelling on the uncertainties, Donald began to revel in his dream, and for the first time in a long time, he was happy.

Work was a trying chore the next day, as it always was. Donald impatiently went through the motions, did his duties, carried on, but all the while he was eager to hurry back to that weeping thing under his bed.

Donald hadn't noticed that he'd had a smile plastered to his face all morning, until someone else pointed that out to him.

"She must have been a good lay, Donnie-boy." His coworker commented and slapped at his shoulder, as break time came around and the small troop of employees strolled like a tired army into the employee lounge. "Does she have a sister?"

Donald chuckled.

One of the other workers he associated with happened to be a homosexual. "Or does she have a brother?"

Donald laughed even louder this time, but if there ever was a time when he'd kept his lips sealed, and his mouth mum, this was it. Eventually, his buddies tired of trying to prod the information out of him, and they left him by himself while they went for their smokes, or their soft drinks, or whatever.

Donald merely sat there, in the employee lounge, and munched down the single apple he'd brought in, and drank from his water bottle. As he ate, he wondered what the weeping thing was up to, all by its lonesome back home. He imagined it crawling out of the salad bowl, dragging itself along the carpet and getting all sorts of loose fibers and stray hairs on its meaty flesh. He imagined it crawling up the side of Margaret's bed, while the old woman was still asleep.

He pictured the weeping thing making its way over by Margaret's head, and in a spurt of action, driving itself at her face, forcing itself into her mouth, and filling it, and choking the life right out of her as it wedged itself down her throat.

That was when Donald laughed the loudest, startling several of the others in the lounge, for his laugh was a maniac's laugh.

Donald looked around, as they all stared at him as if he was some sort of lunatic. He cleared his throat and said, "I just remembered a joke. A really funny one."

Before anyone could open their mouth to ask, he was already on his feet and heading back to his work area.

Donald jumped off the bus, the moment the doors slid open for him, and jauntily, he made his way back to the house. Luckily, Margaret was out, and he quickly hurried over to his bedroom, where he locked the door behind him.

He lifted the bed skirt, and ducked his head down to find the salad bowl right where he'd left it. Slowly, he brought it out into the open.

The weeping thing was still inside, sitting placidly, ebbing a slight warmth, and it took Donald a moment to figure out that the food he'd left it with was now gone. Also, the pieces the crows had bitten out of it were scabbed over with coarse purple-red coatings, much like a normal person's.

"So you can eat people food." Donald marveled, as he studied the numerous little scabs. "And you can heal, too."

He thought about what else he could feed the thing, without Margaret finding out about it, when he turned to a corner of his room and spotted a box of kid's cereal. He'd gotten it a few weeks back, when he'd had a craving for it, but Margaret had such a tirade over how a children's cereal should be eaten only by children, that Donald had since grown irritated enough to take it into his room and hide it there.

Now, he left the bowl long enough to retrieve the small box, and he brought it over and undid the plastic bag that held the sweetened treats captive.

"I'll only give you a little of this, because I don't know how much sugar you can take." Donald spoke to his new pet, as he reached in and grabbed a small handful.

He opened up his hand to allow the tiny pieces to fall out, meaning to simply drop them in on the side, as he'd done with the lettuce the day before. What he saw down there in the bowl, however, was enough to make him jump back and drop most of what he'd been holding, and in his haste to flee, he also tipped over the box of cereal and sent a small mob of its pieces to invade the carpet.

Absently, Donald clutched at the remainder of the cereal, as he ran to his bedroom door. He unlocked and opened it, ready to run out of the room, out of the house even, when he realized that Margaret was just coming in.

"Shit." He muttered, as he quietly shut the door, and put his back against the wall, where he could keep a very close eye on the bowl.

He stood that way for a few minutes, before he remembered the last few little pieces of oats and marshmallows still in his grip, and the sweat from his curled hand heating against them. Recalling how much he'd spent on that box of cereal, Donald quickly stuffed the bits into his mouth.

Then, he locked the door again, and slowly, cautiously, he made his way toward the salad bowl. The weeping thing was still there, a featureless pulp as it had been earlier, and Donald began to question what he'd seen, what had made him panic to his feet just a few seconds ago.

"I'm imagining things, that's all." He reasoned with himself. "Seeing things. I'm just tired from work, that's it."

He stared at the thing in the bowl, but it did nothing.

Pieces of cereal had fallen on top of it, and gingerly, Donald wiped them over to one side. On the floor, he saw the small mess of cereal that had scattered out of the box, and once he'd scooped up what he could save, what hadn't reached the carpet but only the box top, he wondered what to do with the rest. He gathered the remainder in his hand, and meant to drop it into the bowl, when he had an idea.

He pinched a single bit of sugary, shaped oat, between his index finger and his thumb, and he held it over the form of the weeping thing.

In terror, he watched as what had happened before started happening again. On the surface of that pink, meaty thing, several tiny slits began to open, as if they were little tiny mouths that wanted to be fed. There were at least a dozen of them, each perhaps half an inch long, if that, and from what he could see, each of them had its own little tongue and was shaped very much like a human mouth.

Donald gulped, and with a growing anxiety, he lowered his fingers and placed the bit of cereal into one of the little mouths. He yanked his hand away, and with a dreadful fascination, he watched as the mouth closed up like a Venus Flytrap that had just captured a juicy morsel.

Donald dropped down on his butt, wishing there was someone he could call to come over to witness this strange monstrosity with him, that could tell him no, Donald, you are not going insane. This is really happening.

He looked back into the bowl, and this time, the mouths hadn't closed up. The first one had gotten a taste of the sweet, and now, the others wanted a taste too. He glanced into his palm, knowing there was plenty of cereal for all of them.

The next tiny mouth got a taste of colored marshmallow. This was bound to make the rest jealous, he nervously chuckled to himself. He began alternating, piece of oat, piece of oat, piece of marshmallow, until all the mouths were closed so tight they were practically impossible to locate, and the rest of the cereal he dropped down into the edge where the first bunch had gone.

Afterward, Donald just sat back and again began wondering at just what he'd brought into the house. It was nothing like he'd ever seen, nothing, as far as he could tell, like anything anybody had ever seen.

The days began to flow by, with Donald being no closer to discovering a romantic interest than he had been before. He did take some consolation from the weeping thing, however, and dutifully he fed it and spoke to it in soft tones, as if it were a new puppy he'd brought home.

Its scabs had all healed over and fallen away, leaving it an unblemished and plump-looking mass of meat. The thing seemed almost to lean towards his fingers sometimes, as Donald reached over to caress its flesh, and it returned his attention and concern with its own special little warmth.

The steady diet was making the thing grow as well, and whereas before it had only been about the size of a fist, it was now the size of two and a half. A full half of the salad bowl was now being taken up by the thing's form.

It had stopped weeping, too. The constant lamentations Donald had first heard had been replaced by a pleasant and steady hum. Perhaps this was the thing's way of purring, he wondered.

More days passed, where the weeping thing had grown to take up nearly three quarters of the space of the bowl. It weighed about as much as a cat, Donald surmised, as he'd become comfortable enough to pick the thing up and settle it on his lap.

He stroked its curve tenderly, speaking to it as one would to a favored potted plant, and he considered how it looked like a semi-firm, semi-malleable egg yolk the color and texture of human skin. He cleaned it up as best he could, with damp towels usually, or with carefully applied moist pads for the more stubborn spots, like when he'd fed the thing soft pieces of chocolate. He tried as hard as he could to see the growing slits of its mouths, but other than the chocolate smudges, he could not discern where they had once been.

Then, came the fateful evening when the weeping thing had started to grow larger than the salad bowl, and Donald took it out and set it on his lap, as he tried to figure out where he could house his pet next.

"You're getting too big for your britches, aren't you?" Donald asked it, but of course, the thing never replied. "Well, I suppose we can put you in one of my moving boxes, but then you'll be out in the open. I may have to keep the top on the box while I'm out, so Meddlesome Margaret won't come in and find you, and have a heart attack over how she told me there were no pets allowed here." He glanced down at the mass resting on his thighs. "I hope you're not claustrophobic."

As Donald considered the ramifications of his new friend being discovered, he absently began stroking the thing, and listening to its low, relaxing murmur. He sighed, comparing how its flesh was so much like human flesh, and in particular, like a woman's flesh. And it had been some time since he'd held a woman close to him.

While Donald kept caressing the weeping thing, he began to imagine sneaking a woman into his bedroom, while the old hag was out.

"Oh, we'd have some fun then, if I did that." Donald mused.

There was some motion from his thighs, and he paused his soft rubbing of the thing, and observed that many of the little mouths were opening. They were getting quite large by then, each one perhaps half the size of an adult human mouth.

"Don't tell me you're hungry again?" Donald asked. "I just fed you a little while ago!"

As he observed, many short tongues began emerging from the many little mouths, and the ones closest to his hand began wrapping themselves around his fingers, or licking at his palm.

Disconcerted, Donald took his hand away. With more than a little apprehension, he asked, "What are you doing now?"

The tongues slipped back into their mouths, and the mouths closed up so tight he could hardly tell where they'd been. They must sprout instantaneously, he figured.

Slowly, cautiously, Donald lowered his hand back onto the weeping thing. The mouths soon reappeared, the tongues re-emerged, and again they began licking at this fingers and at the spaces between his digits. Two of them slid across the underside of his hand, leaving wet and sensuous trails across the cracks and expanses of his palm. He watched those tongues slide back and forth, moistening his hand, licking wide, licking narrow, wrapping themselves halfway around his fingers. The man shivered, sitting there on the edge of his bed, as the many tongues attended to his hand.

He felt his body responding to their erotic motions, felt himself becoming aroused by them.

Excitedly, expectantly, he took in the formless mound on his lap, recalling how previously, he'd seen teeth in those many mouths, which looked much like miniature human teeth.

"Don't..." Donald quivered uneasily. "Please don't bite me."

He set an index finger at the opening to one of the larger, more attentive of the mouths, and gently, he pushed it in. The mouth was wet and hot, and it wrapped itself around his finger, tight, as the tongue swirled around it in a most provocative way. The mouth was sucking away at his finger, much like a woman would, and within his pants Donald found his lust growing and expanding like a field of flowers ready to bloom. Euphoria, this is what Donald was feeling, in one of those relatively rare occasions in his mostly miserable life.

Absently, his eyes drifted over to the clock, and this is when he realized how late it was.

"It's getting late." Donald said, as he brought his finger out of the tiny mouth, and away from that delicious sucking. "I've got to get my gear ready for tomorrow." He chortled. "I've got to take my shower, and shave, and brush my teeth." He looked back at the thing sitting on his lap. "You'll go back into the bowl for tonight, but I promise that I'll find somewhere larger for you tomorrow."