Tests on Tests

They ran all the tests, then ran them again, and again, and again. Nothing. If the moss had infected them in any way they couldn’t find it. They watched the video of ‘Mother’ so many times they were quoting it to themselves in their sleep. Colt hadn’t left her side, they had both taken extended leave from the hospital (which wasn’t that big a deal since Danny was their main patient, and staffing hasn’t been an issue in hospitals for decades). They were at a loss, Danny hasn’t had another episode in a while and was getting put to sleep less and less. He is still super frustrated, but having the kids around helps him immensely. He can’t let go of all the shit Dad forced into his brain all those years, it hurts to engage with him about it, hearing Dad’s words come out of him after so long makes her want to cry. She has to stay strong for him.

“Maybe we’re wrong, maybe everything is on the up and up with the moss.” Colt said over Corrine’s shoulder as she studied the latest test results.

“It sure does appear that way, but still, I can’t shake this feeling.” she looked up at him “Oh well, were not gonna solve this right now, and I’m hungry, lets go to the house and get something to eat, check in on Danny.” she said while standing up and walking to the door. As she opened it, you could see the back of their house staring at them like a jealous child sick of not being played with. The wall that separated the inside from the outside was gone and the living room appeared from this angle to meld with the backyard, there they could see Danny in his now almost daily routine of playing with Nocossa, Rain watching Danny, and the twins fiddling away in the kitchen with Landis.

“Hey sis, you finally decided to grace us with your presence, I see” Danny joked while standing up straight and giving her his deepest bow, the kids chuckled and followed suit. Corinne almost wished for the days when the fam had been just a little scared of her, but was so happy with Danny’s progress she let that, and the nagging feeling that there was more going on with the moss than she could see go for the moment.

“Don’t let it go to your head, we’re just hungry.” she said to him with her best version of his shiteating grin. 

“When you gonna let me come into your ‘clubhouse’ and see all your fancy toys?” he said

“Danny” she said with almost a century of practiced patience “You are welcome in there any time you wish, you know this.”

“Whatever” he shrugged, clearly already over this whole conversartion

“We’re prepping lunch right now” Landis said from the kitchen. The bench section of the room was still intact around the table, and the table, she could now see, was loaded with a rainbow of foods. Her stomach gave a whoop and she made a b-line straight for it.

“This all looks incredible kids, well done” Corinne beamed with pride and love in equal parts. They all slid into place around the table, Danny, Corinne and Colt curled into the bench and the kids took up the chairs with Gopher and Snorts taking positions on the bench as well right in between Colt and Corinne. Nocossa started to lumber over then hit the air with a couple of deep sniffs, shook his head and rumbled off into the woods behind the house.

“Whats up with Nocossa?” Danny asked

“He doesn’t like smell of the meat substitutes” Rain said

“I don’t blame him” Danny said shaking his head. While also preparing to shovel the biggest forkful of said substitute into his piehole.

“Get off it Unc, you cant tell me that STILL bothers you, I mean… look at your fork?!” Rain said as they all chuckled. Danny, clearly miffed by this threw his fork down in disgust.

“None of you get it, you were born in this, you don’t know what ‘real food’ tastes like. How incredible it feels to load up the truck and head out for a hunt, the feeling of joy when you best nature, and provide for you and yours.”

To this Corinne gave him the biggest ‘of all the things that never happened’ faces she could muster, but before she could retort Danny fired on. “Yea, life had its problems, more so than now from what I can tell, but we also had freedom, you can’t just get into your cars and drive wherever you want, whenever you want, and speaking of want, I haven’t heard you kids ‘want’ for anything, no complaining about school, friends, any of it, its fucking weird!”

“Danny” Corinne began in her best ‘practiced patience’ tone “we would be at this table for the rest of our lives if I went point by point and refuted your bullshit there, so I wont, but I will say that our freedom of movement has never been greater, we can walk to the tram then go to the train station then go literally anywhere on the planet and soon off of it, if you miss hunting THAT much there are still collectives out there that refuse to let go of the old ways, we can introduce you as soon as we’re sure that you are in tip top shape. We still have the internet, its just not something we feel the need to carry around with us all day, we absolutely still reward the people with drive and ambition to contribute communally, we just don’t make the people who don’t suffer any longer. Everyone has a place here, and that’s good, Danny, its really good.”

She could see his far off stare that meant whatever listening he was normally capable of had left the building, so she turned to the kids and fed them compliments on the food, while keeping an eye on Danny’s moss, which had color shifted to the lavender that she now understood meant it was using to try and calm him down, she also understood if that didn’t work it would go cherry blossom and it was night night time. She desperately didn’t want that so she made the calculated decision to talk about the thing she hated most, their father.

“Remember when Dad used to make us go to the gun range and you would act like you loved it, but secretly we complained about it the whole time?” she asked

“Yeah” Danny chuckled “he was so convinced that we were going to have to fight for our survival. Heh he would HATE all of this so much.” As he said this he looked reflectively into his food and then took a long drink. Corinne watched the moss like a hawk, but it stayed that lavender color. It did start to tremble slightly, and she found herself holding her breath, but he put his cup down, and picked up his fork and went back to eating his meal.

The rest of the meal was full of the kids filling us in on the events of their lives, Molly volleyball and track, Maredeth track and ‘the theatre’, Landis basketball and the culinary arts, and Rain, well, Rain wanted… no, was desperate to follow in Grandma, and Dad’s footsteps. They spent every waking hour either with Danny, or in the family office where Corinne and Dad had set up “Moss-watch” as they all called it.

After the meal her and Danny went for a walk around the neighborhood with the pugs, as they walked the pugs shot back and forth, between their legs, around corners, and back again. Tongues wagging happily, they jumped up in the business of everything they saw, including, but not limited to, some deer, a goat, Eyaha who looked like she was really into one of the neighbors pies sitting on the windowsill to cool, and finally, a cow that was happily wondering around eating grass off of, well everything.

She watched Danny but tried not to stare, focusing on the moss the entire time. “I’m not glass you know” he said feeling her not stare. “I won’t break, no matter what you think.” he mumbled

“Oh Danny, I know that, its just that we still aren’t fully sure what activates the moss to put you to sleep and while it does that, it would be foolish of us to take you to far from home, or overload you with possibly upsetting information… you know this. So whats really bothering you?” she asked

“Why did you hate Dad so much?” He asked with a pleading look on his face that about broke her resolve, and forced her to fess up to everything all at once.

“Danny, you know it was more complicated than that, you remember what he did to mom, and what he did to me, and even you.” she said in the kindest softest voice she had.

“Look around Cor, he was right, this world here is everything he was pushing against.” Danny said pleadingly.

“I know, but you also know I thought he was wrong then and I’m super glad he was wrong now.” she practically whispered. “The world couldn’t handle anymore of him and people like him, or more to the point, humanity couldn’t”

“You don’t know that.” Danny said, but he did it in a way that sounded unsure for the first time. “They had the best people working on the problems, with a little more time they could have fixed everything.” he wimpered.

“Oh Danny, no, they could never fix the problems that chased humanity because they were the problem’s that held humanity hostage. I know this is hard to hear, I know how much Dad being right meant to you, and how he shaped your worldview, but I also know you Danny, I know how smart you are, how dedicated to doing right you were, how deeply you felt for people, you were just never allowed to feel those feelings for everybody. You were led to believe that other people wanting their humanity recognized was somehow a threat to your humanity, when truth is thats not how it works, its never been how any of it worked.” she said all of this in the softest way she knew how and never took her eyes off of the moss. It made the occasional shimmer, but stayed the Teal color that meant Danny was handling all this info.

“I’m tired.” he said, I’d like to go back now.” Danny said

“Of course” she said “I love you Danny”

“Me too” he smirked back at her.

When they got back to the house, he went straight to his room and she followed him, since her ‘nap’ she has been resistant to go in there, but her concern for Danny trumped everything else in this moment. As they entered, she saw the moss ‘connect’ to the shoulder moss, in that way that reminded her of the very first time she had introduced one moss to another. Then the shimmering looked like a stadium doing the wave repeatedly. She wanted to get her recorder out, but didn’t want Danny to notice her excitement (...or was it fear now?). He went straight for the bathroom, “I’m gonna rinse off then hit the hay, feel free to stick around if you wanna.” he said over his shoulder never actually turning to look at her.

“Thanks, but I actually have some work I need to do, get some rest though.” She said to him and as she did a counter-ripple shot through the Moss and as soon as the door was shut the moss stopped.

When she got back to the Moss-cave, (That was her new nickname for Danny’s room), she pulled out of her pocket a chunk of Danny’s wall moss. “Alright ‘mother’ lets get down to it.” she said to the moss in a way that immediately made her feel dumb. She was unaware of how much time had gone past when Colt finally came in, and she looked at him almost feral “Get in here, and shut the door” she practically growled at him.

She was sitting at a table with the piece of moss sitting in front of her strung up like a hostage in one of those old ass movies she used to make him watch with her when he was little. “Should I be worried?” he asked only half serious, but the look she gave him kicked that figure way past half.

“I’ve been studying this stuff for over half my life, and I never thought to ask if it was a two way street. We knew it was helping to sustain Danny and that it had a similar relationship to people that trees do yea?” She rambled, but not quite as maniacally as he first suspected. “More always made sense yea, but what if that wasn’t us making that decision?”

“Ok, but we tested for this before, many times, we couldn’t find any measure of the moss interacting with minds that were awake.” Colt looked at her, “That’s right, nothing. But we didn’t have a key ingredient did we? An awake Danny.”

Over the next two weeks Corinne and Colt shadowed Danny waiting for ‘Mother’ to reappear, and also taking moss samples to study while he slept. They continued to monitor his behavior for any signs that he was anything other than what he looked. Nothing. Finally, one night as Danny was about to go to sleep and as she was leaving she heard “Corinne” in that voice that definitely wasn’t Danny’s