Wayward Son

I am so mad at my Mommy. I tell her I do not want her to leave me. She tells me she never will, but I do not believe her.

Two years ago, there was a bad drought like today and we abandoned my baby sister. Mommy was too sick to feed her. She kept passing out. I begged Mommy not to, but she said it is the only way. She said a different family will find her and take care of her, because we can't. I cried for two days. I couldn't sleep.

And now she does the same thing to me!

But there is something I do not understand. This drought is so bad. Everything is starving. Why would another family have food for me if my Mommy does not?

I am all alone and more hungry now than ever. I walk far and find a tree that still has some leaves, so I get shade. It is near a stream so I can drink water, but now I do not have energy to stand up. So the stream is worthless.

At night, I cannot sleep. My head hurts badly. I see something strange. A giant bird flies down from the sky. Two animals come out of the bird's mouth. They are much bigger than I am and they are made out of rocks.

They tell me to come with them, but I cannot even move my finger. They stare at me for a long time. They have a red star on their head. It is blinking.

Finally, they understand and they pick me up. Their rough skin rubs against my back and it scrapes me.

They take me into the bird's mouth and inside it is like daytime. I get a feeling in my chest like when you balance on a log and it rolls and you start to fall backwards but the feeling lasts for a long time. They put a bee sting in my arm, which makes it cold, but after that I feel better.

I think Mommy made a good choice to leave me behind even though it made me sad. Now, I have food every day. Once, when I am worried, I ask the stone animals if a drought will happen again like it did at home but they do not understand me so they become very still like when they first found me and their heads start blinking and they say, "We have evidence of such climatological phenomenon in our archeological record."

I'm happy some people find me and save my life but sometimes I still cannot sleep. I miss my home – the stars and the wind and even the smell of dust. I think about my Mommy because I love her, and I feel sad because I worry about my little sister.

And there are some other things I still do not understand. When I ask the stone animals if a different family helped my sister before they helped me, they say, "We lack a conception of your word 'family.' Equivalent terminology is absent from our vocabulary." Then they say, "Furthermore, we have conducted a thorough genetic sampling of your home's planetary surface and have concluded that we are the sole nonindigenous individuals to have made physical contact with it since its inception."

I don't know what that means but I think that some other stone animals probably did find my sister. They probably brought her to a good place just like this.

The End