In the midnight hour
My eyes open and I awake. A snuffling is heard, a grunting that shares much in common with the vocalizations of a pig. Quietly, I get out of bed and move through the darkness to the nursery. There he lies, moving his legs and thrashing his arms, wrestling with inner demons and the soggy nature of his diaper. What will he become? I wonder. Politician, musician, garbage man? There is a long line of custodians in the Singer family. We do well near sewers or power plants. Waste is part of our lives, and we've never shied way from that fact. Somehow, I do not think the broom will be in his future. I lovingly caress his hooves and take him into my arms. The snuffling ceases, replaced by a deep, guttural purring.
After the midnight hour
Again my son's crying tears me awake. Sleeplessness is a peculiar kind of hell, a type of altered consciousness that pulls on your bones and rattles your memory. I've lived this hell before; in fact, I will live it again, a million more times until the sun supernovas and the rocky shell we call earth incinerates. Children are part of the natural cycle, hooves and all. Sometimes they come out hirsute, little bears waiting for open arms. Other times they come out with scales and gnashing teeth, hungry like prehistoric reptiles. I like my atavistic spawn. They remind me how far we have come and what we have left behind.
In the tender twilight
Goddamnit, why won't it sleep? Does it wish to crawl around in the darkness? Such is our natural aspect, yet the conventions of society demand we sleep during the night. I might wish to prowl the streets like a big cat, yet I must get my eight hours or I'll be incapable of performing my professional drudgery. Does the little beast not know who puts food into his mouth? Well technically the Spider-wife does, but I finance her staying at home to care for the brood! Somehow you remember and you forget. What a half-conscious existence we live.
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