Pocket Monsters (Blue Version) by Corey Miller

When my wife falls asleep in the hospital, I write Brock on our newborn’s birth certificate then super glue his eyes shut. His hands arrive to this world calloused like he was lifting heavy objects for nine months.

Each bed in this wing is occupied; limbs missing from combat, people infected with the virus that’s nibbling away our population, and there are more families delivering babies into this mess. We didn’t know how the world would be when the condom broke. I don’t approve of abortion no matter the circumstance. Life is life.

The staff needs the bed for incoming traffic. They shake my wife awake and rush us out within an hour of Brock’s birth. We have no clue what we’re doing, but the nurses say we’ll manage.

* * *

It’s easy to apply Gorilla glue to Brock’s eyes as an infant. He can’t go very far, rolling on his back like an oblong egg, a fragile shell with life inside. My wife watches me squeeze the tube out as if putting on eye liner. Brock whines as loud as a liberal at a protest. My wife hasn’t spoken since Brock arrived. I said that Brock must have stolen her voice, but her face remains stone.

Instead of attending college before Brock was born, I opted for 16 months of police academy. It was easier and cheaper than most other professions and I get special privileges. I got a standard-issued Smith and Wesson M&P 2.0 9mm; a chance to sleep, away from the newborn, having another cop car pull up alongside mine to keep watch while I rest my eyes; the law believes my word over others, always giving me the upper hand.

There’s a report of a Pokémon the size of a garbage bin on Main Street. Officer Jenny and I cruise the seven blocks and find the thing in Ms. Song‘s Garden. The person on dispatching duty exaggerated. The thing is a little black ball with grass growing from it’s head, repeating the word Oddish. That ain’t natural. I don’t know what to make of it, so I unholster my S&W and empty a magazine into it until it stops talking. Somehow there’s still a heartbeat, if these things have hearts. Ms. Song is white with terror from this creature terrorizing her garden.

This is why I became a cop. This is why I need the power.

* * *

Brock plays with the other toddlers on the playground, feeling his way around the monkey bars. The metal bars gridded like a ladder fallen over on its side for children to swing over imaginary lava. I supervise sideline with the other parents who avoid me, not understanding why Brock’s eyes are glued shut. Brock gets to the last rung and reaches for another, grasping air and falling into the wood chips. The next child, waiting their turn in line, peers down at Brock struggling in the dirt.

There’s a crashing sound from Viridian Forest, next to the park. Trees are forced down, broken from their bases. Us parents stand in unison, creeping towards our offspring. A Pokémon the size of Cerulean Cave appears. It’s a giant snake like Pokémon made of rocks. It has a sort of unicorn horn on it’s forehead. I don’t want to believe it’s real.

I refuse.

I’m flooded by the mob of people breaking out of the park, rushing to their cars. I fire a shot into the air in order to calm the crowd down, but the parents don’t stop running, don’t stop collecting their children. Whenever I feel the control slip away from me, I tend to break things: branches, walls, the silence. I scream, Brock, follow my voice. He scrambles on all fours like a service dog. I shove down parents, kick down kids like doors to get to Brock. The Pokémon stops slithering and stares at Brock and me. It looks cold blooded. My police force arrive and we fire every round of ammunition into it until the beast recoils and leaves.

There was another at the park today, I tell my wife when we get home. She stares at the television, a documentary on parasites. The last thing I remember her saying before having Brock was something about her wanting me to leave the police force. I wonder if she comprehends these creatures.

Every night I read Brock a bedtime story about life before Pokémon, simple and safe. He says they sound cute and starts to cry. The wetness and pressure almost undoes the glue. Once he’s asleep I gently reapply.

My wife hasn’t shed the weight since Brock’s birth. She’s gotten bigger as Brock has grown up. Her stomach makes noises like running shoes in a dryer’s spin cycle, wrinkling Brock’s tear-stained sheets.

* * *

Every morning before I drop Brock off at middle school, I’m bombarded by his questions: What do Pokémon look like? Why do they fight? Why won’t they die? Does mom know how to talk? What’s in her belly?

I don’t have the answers, but I’m a parent, so with confidence behind my voice, I make something up. Pokémon look like criminals. They fight because knowledge is painful. They don’t die because they don’t have a heaven. You left mom speechless for so long, she forgot how to form words. You have a sibling on the way that’s scared of this world.

Brock gets out of the car and heads to class disappointed with my answers. From my car parked along the curb, I watch Brock sit in his assigned seat through the school window. He has Math first period. It’s not until fifth period, after lunch, when another kid opens fire with the gun they brought from their father’s gun safe.

I was napping in my police vehicle in between highways when my lookout buddy woke me up with the news from the dispatcher. We arrive to the school in fifteen minutes. By then, all the action has passed. They have the kid in custody with five students dead and one teacher. Could have been a lot worse, my buddy sighs.

I find Brock still in his fifth period seat. He tells me he didn’t know where to go so he just remained seated.

There was another school shooting, I report to my wife when we get home, after I’ve filled out all of the paperwork. That’s the worst part of the job, all of the paperwork.  She stares at the blank television as if it were turned on. Her belly is the size of a stability ball. Like one we used for stretching and breathing exercises during her Lamaze classes. I picture sitting on her belly mound as a mother hen, hoping to warm up the baby or squash it to death. For a second, I don’t know what I’m hearing. It sounds like bricks breaking apart in a concrete mixer. Then I realize it’s just her stomach, going through the motions.

* * *

An Amber Alert pops up on my phone: PLEASE BE ADVISED POKÉMON WREAKS HAVOC ON DOWNTOWN PEWTER CITY. STAY INDOORS. I radio the station and they relay that this is above us. Out of our jurisdiction. Military doesn’t want our help.

My wife watches the live coverage. The military drop bombs on this being that looks like a glowing red dragon. I feel powerless not being there with my gun.

I put bars on the windows and I install security cameras in each room so I’ll never be in the dark. I dread going to bed. My wife’s stomach vibrates, keeping me awake. Instead, I watch her sleep through the camera Bluetoothed to my phone. Whatever she’s dreaming about makes her look like she’s trying to scream, but nothing will come out.

* * *

Brock spends his first teenage year in the garage, claiming to be working on the next big invention. He has sheets over the workbench hiding his progress. Brock wants to become a Pokémon breeder. I don’t know how he got the thought that monsters were safe. Brock, my force has to work overtime to get rid of those bastards. They’re invasive.

When he uses the bathroom, I lift the sheets to see what he’s working on. There’re red and white balls like Christmas ornaments. My wife catches me spying.

Under her flower dress, her stomach sounds like a boxer training on a speed bag. She squats. Her grunting is a breath of relief to me, to know she still produces sound. There’s blood and other liquids falling from the bottom of her dress, unseen what is leaking. An arm reaches out of her. Then another. Then a falling thud cracks the concrete foundation. A smooth rock ball with two arms and a face studies me. Brock comes back and investigates, his hands dripping wet from washing up but forgoing drying. He runs his hands over the rock formation, shaking it’s hands as if meeting his new brother.

* * *

We haven’t seen Brock or that rock in a week. No idea where he could have ventured to. The garage is cleared out of his inventions.

I’m scared that the glue will come undone. What will be the first thing to pierce his sight? My first memory is of my parents fighting in the car on the way back from grandma’s. The nighttime screaming woke me up in my car seat. The windows fogged from the freezing dark winter and broken heater. Somehow I felt misplaced even strapped down.

I hope Brock sees me behind a flower’s first bloom.

My wife has been sleeping easier, stomach compressed and silent. Without her children she seems unburdened. She only looks peaceful when she’s sleeping. I lay next to her, rolling the tube of super glue in my palm. I wish I had more answers to the questions forming in my mind like droplets from a leaky faucet, filling a clogged sink. I watch my wife as if she were a television, her sleep talking the news channel reporting what morals I should follow. Her eyes twitch in dream. Rapidly moving, studying the world around her.

Corey Miller

Image: Wikicommons/images Taken by User:Omegatron using a Canon Powershot SD110 – A tube of superlue