The Beasts that I Feed

It was weirdly sticky and mysteriously bubbly. What gross process of decomposition had brought this on? Or, maybe not decomposition at all, but life—new life! I felt like a mad scientist, wielding my wooden spoon around in the open air of my kitchen. It might be hungry. I’d better feed this beast.

I feed a lot of things in my house, but this was a new one.

I feed a hamster. I check on him every morning by pulling the little pink plastic castle he calls a bed up above him. He jars awake, squints his beady eyes at me with the same expression I give to my children when they jar me awake first thing in the morning. And then I drop more of his little seeds into his little bowl. One miniature furry mammal fed. Check.

The golden eyes of a coward.

I feed two dogs. I start by pouring the noisy hard dog food pellets into the bowls. Each pellet makes a harsh clatter against the walls of the bowl, and the descendants of Pavlov’s dogs get wet tongues. Then I divvy out the goods—the wet, slimy, potent smelling stuff out of the dog food can. The kind of stuff that creatures that would willingly eat roadkill enjoy.

Immediately Old Man Dog asserts his dominance over the situation. He might be forty pounds less than his brother, but he can do a mean ankle bite should it become necessary. He snarls at Big Dog, and Big Dog cowers, and it is all very sad and pathetic until I kick one of the bowls ten feet away into Big Dog’s direction. Two larger mammals fed. Check.

Hello, morning.

I feed two small humans. I start out by standing in the kitchen for ten seconds, which is about long enough for the tot to approach and shout in a one-volume-fits-all toddler voice, “I’m hungry!” I will then say “Good news! I’m making breakfast!” in my version of a one-volume-fits-all voice, which is not very loud. Then comes the “I want something while I wait on it,” and this is repeated over and over and over until I shove an apple in her general direction. (She’s charming. Really, she is.)

Breakfast is put on the table and the boy shimmies around in his chair for unexplained reasons until there are approximately 100 crumbs on the floor. Two moderate sized mammals fed. Check.

And then—last but not least, never forgotten but occasionally neglected—it is time to feed the beast.

A tooth of a beast.

It waits from beneath its covering, slowly simmering away in its own strange bodily properties. I say it, but the beast is not one. The beast is millions, maybe billions—I don’t know how many beasts live among its slime. I flung off its restraints and tossed back the covering, then let out a gasp.

The beast had risen.

“You are viable—you, oh, sweet you.” I said like only a mad scientist can, and I bent down and inhaled its fabulous sour scent. “Soon it will be time,” I announced to the beast and the beast wobbled in its bowl, as though in acknowledgment. “Soon, my pet. Soon you and I shall make bread.” I fetched the measuring cup and bag of flour for feeding time.

Millions or billions of bacteria and yeast fed. Check.