13

13

F lora snatches the pig and stomps toward the garage. This is ridiculous. It's all ridiculous. There was no one in the house. The activity cube has not miraculously turned itself on without batteries. Everything is in her head.

"Except you are holding that pig," Zephie says, right on Flora's heels. "That's real, at least."

"I know, but—" And then Flora stops herself, because she's about to argue with an imaginary person.

Zephie does have a point, though. The pig in Flora's hand is indeed real, a shape of plastic she can feel and hold and squeeze. And she has never seen it before in her life, of that she's sure… Isn't she?

Flora flicks the lock of the garage and opens the heavy door, stepping out onto the wooden steps and marching down three short flights to the cement floor below. It's cold in here, and she's reminded that she's not wearing any clothes from the waist up, besides her thin nursing bra, which has expanded under the pressure of her huge, full breasts. The right one is throbbing, the clog solidifying, and a bright red streak has appeared on top.

Her sweatpants drag on the floor and get caught underfoot as she makes a beeline for the metal shelves. Of course the activity cube is now silent, but the box she had placed in front of it has been moved so that she can clearly see the big orange face of a pig.

She was right: the squeaky pig from the living room looks just like it. She bends at the waist and holds the two pigs side by side. Their smiles are wide and deep and slightly maniacal. Flora leans in close to inspect them, but she is instantly startled and flinches away.

did this pig just fucking wink at me

She stares, daring the pig's snout to wiggle, challenging her own brain and the eyes that she no longer trusts. Plastic pigs don't breathe, they aren't alive, they don't wink, they don't even have expressions—

"THE PIG GOES—"

Flora shrieks and instinctively smacks the cube off the shelf, simultaneously jettisoning the small pig in her hand across the garage.

"Did you hear that?" she asks Zephie, because it makes perfect sense that she would ask an entity that doesn't exist if she, too, heard a potentially imaginary noise.

"Yes," Zephie says, and it's the only confirmation Flora needs. That means someone replaced the batteries, moved the stationery box, positioned the plastic pig on her coffee table, and God fucking knows maybe even put the crackers in the refrigerator.

Flora runs back into the house, locking the heavy door of the garage and sliding a nearby bench in front of it. But as soon as she does, before she can even catch her breath, she is doubting herself.

locking the garage won't be enough

She needs to destroy the cube. And so she pushes the bench aside again and reopens the door. Flora is sweating as she gallops toward the shelves and wrangles the hammer from her red toolbox. Her sweatpants again trip her up, so she pulls them off with concerted effort in great frustration. Stripped down to her bra and adult diaper, she stalks the activity cube across the garage. It's silent, but the bright lights blink and illuminate the smiling pig in alternating half-light, half-shadow.

She lifts the hammer high above her head, squats, and swings. The hammer barely makes a dent in the hard plastic, so she brings it up again and swings harder. This time, a small piece of the corner flies off. For leverage, she places one foot on a nearby utility bucket weighed down by fertilizer, and then swings and swings and swings. It's cathartic, the whacking, even as the lights continue to blink their bright colors. Flora's eyes go wide in wonder and disbelief; how does this thing still have a heartbeat?

Another piece flies off, this time coming at Flora and sticking— thwack! —right into her arm. It's about an inch long, with jagged, sharp edges that lodge in her skin like a dart in a dartboard. Blood immediately beads to the surface and drips down her arm in a single dark streak. Flora barely notices as she continues to smash the cube.

When it finally breaks in half, she uses her left hand to hold the bigger piece in place as she brings the hammer down. But the tool hits her thumb,

motherfucker and the pain throbs loudly. She pauses, bringing her thumb to her lips, sucking on it like she did as a child, trying desperately to minimize the pulsing hurt. She will definitely lose this nail. Might she lose the whole thumb? That's hilarious. She laughs, loud and shrill, as she imagines losing a thumb because she wanted to dispel some evil spirit from a child's activity cube.

In her moment of pause, she hears the doorbell from the main house. And something about this feels perfectly natural. Why, of course she has a visitor. Why wouldn't she?

She tosses the hammer aside, unceremoniously rips the sharp plastic from her forearm, and wipes at her brow like she has just finished a long day of manual labor. She glides through the living room and foyer feeling lighter somehow, and even Zephie has a glow about her.

Flora smiles to herself as she approaches the front door. She reaches for the knob, her euphoria outweighing the throbbing of her thumb and the calcifying of her milk ducts and the steady bleeding of her forearm.

She opens the door, the outside chill prickling her naked bare skin, and there, standing before her, is her mother.

Flora's lips part and her eyes go wide. She can barely croak out a word.

"Mom?" she manages, and then Zephie is there, very much there, fiercely protective, her energy buzzing like an electric fence between Flora and the world.

Jodi stands beside an efficient gray suitcase. Her white hair is in a bun, and she wears a black wool jumpsuit over a simple cream-colored top.

Her right eye twitches twice. A tic.

She looks at Flora with mild disgust. "You might want to put on some clothes."