A Crop of Starlight

Walter cringed when he glimpsed a police car entering the neighborhood. Why couldn't they leave people alone? This was a safe place. People kept to themselves. He drew the blinds shut, paused, then stared as he realized the car had come to his driveway.

One fist clenched and shaking on the doorknob, he flung it open the moment the doorbell rang. "You! What do you want? No, you can't come in." They were like vampires. If you gave them permission you weren't safe in your own home.

Two men and their holsters had invaded his doorstep. One said, "Mister Walter Avery? We'd like to talk about your little farm."

"I grow corn and a few apple trees. Half an acre, for my own use, and it's none of the government's business if I eat my own food." Actually the traitor courts had ruled otherwise; so much for getting protection from them and their armed men. But that wasn't the point.

"Aerial footage," said one of them. "It shows unusual things that people might be growing behind a few rows of corn." He glanced at the ordinary-looking green stalks visible from the road.

And Walter laughed in the men's faces. "You think I'm growing marijuana! You have no idea. Show me a warrant or -- go away."

"Fleischer?" said one cop. The other handed him an official-looking document and smiled back with equal friendliness.

Walter snatched it and skimmed. "You want to see my garden? Fine!" He stepped outside and slammed the door behind him, giving a glance at a harmless-looking living room. His pet and his workshop were in the basement anyhow. Without a word he stomped along the weedy yard, opened the fence, and went into neck-high corn. He beckoned, resisting the urge to do it with his middle finger. Let them see!

The two cops followed warily. Walter led them from the boring corn to his special crop: more corn and the apples. But the sun was getting low, and everything in this hidden field had started to shine. The leaves glittered, a little more translucent than normal. The trees had grown in great whorls like a Van Gogh painting above rich, ink-dark soil. Not quite real. Better.

"Just more food," said Fleischer.

Walter turned his gaze away from the work that had become his life. He wondered if both these men were so blind as to --

The other said, "What is that? Why is it... glowing?"

Now Walter allowed himself a faint honest grin. "You're in the presence of something holy. I doubt you'd understand. You don't find any drugs here, so you can get off my property now. There's a family of illegals down the street for you to bust."

"Don't you see it?" said the other cop to Fleischer.

"The glow? Now that you mention it, yeah. What is this? Radiation?"

"It doesn't work like that. Mister Avery, what are we looking at?"

Walter appraised the trespassers in his garden. He hated to admit this to himself, but it was hard to be growing wrinkles and grey hairs and to still be alone with what he guarded. "I'll let you into my living room." But damned if he'd offer drinks.

Inside, he left the armed men to spy on his dirty carpet and kitty-litter box. Nothing to interest the nosiest government man. But what he brought upstairs was like a ball of clay, made of glass and stars. He kneaded the chunk of starlight between his hands, stretching it like taffy, and said, "I've set up dead-drops. If you or some better-armed goons try to take what's mine for some evil research project, samples and notes will go out even if you kill me."

The cops exchanged a look. Cowed by his cleverness, obviously. "Sir, we have no intention of hurting you. Or arresting you, now that we've seen your field. We're just curious. What is that?"

Walter told them.

#

Years ago when the country was a sunnier place, he'd come home fro ma day of selling overpriced computers to find a waist-high package on his doorstep. Too big for a reasonable-sized bomb of a packet of anthrax. He opened it with a knife and found another box inside -- but this one glowed, unnaturally bright even in broad daylight. His first thought was radiation, so that he barricaded himself inside to consult Wikipedia. When he peeked back through the door the box shook a little. Walter thought about shooting it from across the street. But then he tugged the whole thing inside, and warily cut a hole in the glowing cardboard.

A head peeked out, larger than the hole. Black fur, beady eyes, a white stripe up the middle... oh hell, someone had mailed him a live skunk!

He'd already backpedaled when the critter somehow popped its whole body through the inch-wide hole. It bounced onto the carpet and stared way up at him with a little smile. It was... cute. He was pretty sure that level of sparkly eyes was illegal under federal law. And the animal glowed, too. Walter reared back, one foot forward, trying to figure out how not to get sprayed. So there'd been a chemical weapon in the box after all! Already it was rubbing against his leg and purring like a cat. Like his cat, which had just slinked up from the basement.

Hiss! Purr? Double hiss! Pirrr! Growl? Ominous foot-stamp, fluffy tail wag. Resigned hiss, dignified snort.

Walter watched the argument. "Jefferson's a bit ornery. If you can go without stinking up my house... Better idea; let me get you to the yard." He opened the back door, tried to shoo the skunk out, and didn't see... Why was there a weight on his head?

The skunk slurped his forehead, craning its head out so that Walter could see the beady eyes peering upside-down at him. And at the risk of startling the skunk in his hair, Walter laughed. Something he did too rarely.

#

His new pet was amazingly well-behaved. In the sense of not doing the obvious, anyway. He was sure it was stealthier than a tax hike, because the skunk kept getting into places that shouldn't have been possible, even inside a three-inch-deep medicine cabinet. "How!" he said, glad that the vitamins and things looked untouched. His mystery guest sort of flowed down to the counter like a Slinky, its glowing body visibly stretching for a moment to twice its length. Even Jefferson couldn't do that. It was like watching a cartoon. And there was that brightness, the unusually crisp outline where there should be hazy fur...

But what did that mean? Even back then he didn't believe in miracles, not since the last election. Tentatively he reached down for the skunk perched by his sink, to see the glow against his hand. The critter rubbed its cheek against him. "If you're somehow a toon, what can you do? Build roadrunner traps?" He was forgetting something. Walter snapped fingers and got out a spare set of cat bowls, filling them with food and water. At the far side of the living room; Jefferson's tolerance only went so far.

The living cartoon bounded over to the bowls and dunked its head into the water hard enough to make a short-lived mushroom cloud of it. "Whoa, there," Walter said, starting forward but stopped by a twitchy tail. A moment later the skunk came up for air, sputtering but grinning. Must've needed that. It sniffed dubiously at the cat food though. Walter vaguely remembered the little guy should be an omnivore, although the biology here owed less to Darwin than to Disney. This would do for now.

His cat usually alternated between ignoring him and deigning to be petted, but the toon threw off Jefferson's routine. The two of them settled on flanking Walter's lap while he stared at a computer. There was no record of cartoon critters showing up out of nowhere, not a secret government project or anything. The package had no return address, and the toonish box inside it had only read, inevitably, "ACME". He glanced at the discarded boxes. The outer was just cardboard, but the Acme one glowed surreally, especially now in the dim room. Walter stood suddenly, displacing his two bosses, and carefully tore off a corner of the shiny box. It parted like clay against his fingers. The skunk had felt the same way to pet, and just as warm. "Is this what you're made of?" he asked, holding up the scrap. He sat again and poked and played with the material. It could squash and stretch as wide as he could spread his arms. What was more, it seemed to respond to his intentions, tearing only when he wanted it to and even repairing itself wen he tried rejoining the torn piece to the box.

While Walter got lost in his experiments, he found the skunk tugging his pants leg. "What?" he said. His guest nodded in the direction of the food and water dishes. Walter frowned, seeing the untouched cat food, then did a double-take. He was dealing with a toon... "Can you understand me?"

The skunk tilted its head quizzically. Walter found he was leaning forward, expecting it to talk, but instead it just purred and looked hopefully toward the dishes.

Walter put Jefferson outside for the moment and went shopping. There was a stupid grin on his face. It had been a long time since he'd had a new pet, or a puzzle this interesting to work on. Something surreal and bright had come into his life.

He came back with things to try: dog food, salami, marshmallows, cereal, bread, strawberries. "Skunks like strawberries, right?" And some of the shiniest paints he could find in an art supply store. "You got me to make a fool of myself," he told the skunk, reaching down to give it a scratch behind the ears.

The toon slurped his hand with an implausibly big tongue.

"Eew," he said, though his hand wasn't slobbery. "Anyway, I asked the art clerk, what would she do if she found a cartoon animal? Bunch of hippies, you know; I figured she'd want to sing to it or something. But no, she said she'd try doing Science! In just that tone. I'm not gonna hurt you though."

He tried out the various foods. The skunk sniffed at everything, ate nothing. Well, Walter figured, that was probably okay. As a toon it didn't actually need to eat, did it? He hadn't seen it use the litter box either. He smacked his forehead, realizing he might have to train it, and quickly laid down some newspaper comics sections across the living room. That experiment didn't lead to anything either. Still, the little skunk looked pleadingly at him. So he tried the paint. He coated a strawberry in some allegedly non-toxic poster paint, turning it bright glittery red. "How about that? It's like a cartoon, right?" Even he wasn't convinced. The skunk was made of something that just didn't exist, as far as he'd known.

He let it cuddle on his lap while Jefferson pretended not to care. Meanwhile he fooled around with pieces of the box. Maybe if toon logic applied... He tried painting silly control knobs and the word "TRANSMOGRIFIER" on the side, but he couldn't work the drawn-on controls or get the skunk to move them. He could've sworn the critter was snickering at him. Then he realized what he was doing in the name of Science, and joined in, tickling the impossible visitor.

#

On the second day he found it curled up on the bed, though he'd locked it in the bathroom. "Escape artist," he yawned. Jefferson opened one eye and edged away from where he certainly hadn't been using the skunk's tail as a pillow, thank you very much.

Walter poured himself cereal, talking to the new pet. "What am I going to do with you? I haven't decided how to deal with the media or the chance that federal agents will kick down the door. Are you an escapee from some unusually silly lab? At least you don't need to eat, right?"

The skunk sniffed at the bowl of kibble he'd left out, and whined faintly. Walter supposed he'd do the same if someone had been keeping him cooped up with only pictures of food. "Look, uh... maybe you can find some cartoon mice outside?" He opened the porch door. "I don't want you to think you're caged. We people feel that way often enough." When the skunk didn't budge he gently shooed it outside and shut the door so he could think.

It had reappeared behind him, of course.

He gave that up and called a vet for advice, but he said Walter shouldn't be keeping a wild animal. And that he should call Animal Control if he really couldn't coax it out of his house. And that he might get rabies and die. Somehow Walter didn't think that applied. There was no new advice he could use. Even the trial of mixing up applesauce with shredded bits of toon cardboard didn't produce something that the skunk would eat. It was like mixing oil paint and watercolors. "How does this even work?" said Walter. "I've seen you drink, anyway!"

He looked at the water dish. It was still full despite the skunk having splashed it around. "Then you don't actually need to, right?" This situation wasn't something he was equipped to deal with. He was no big cartoon fan, or abstract physicist, or alien encounter expert.

As the day went on, he gave thanks to the veterans for the long weekend, among other things, and played in fascination with the skunk and the box it came in. When he petted the striped critter's fur it felt warm and smooth, his skin sliding over the surface. The fluffy little anomaly liked him -- had even won Jefferson's toleration -- but was starting to look droopy. No food, no water... For this creature, as far as he could tell, those things didn't exist anywhere in this world.

He spent the day working, playing, having fun with the otherworldly visitor while racking his brain for ideas. That night he fell asleep on the couch with the skunk and the cat sharing his lap and his computer dangling from one hand, playing cheerful cartoons for inspiration.

But in the morning his new pet was dying. The signs of hunger and thirst were easy to read; they took the form of cacti and vultures decorating the air around the skunk. "What do I do with you?" asked Walter. He researched, he experimented with every semi-plausible food and water source and then some; he even tried prayer, having encountered one kind of impossible miracle already this weekend. Nothing worked. Nothing could make the elements of the real world into something usable by his new friend. Walter spent time that was in short supply, petting the skunk and hearing its weak purr.

And then Walter did what any decent man would do, though it was horrible. He went out on the back porch and cuddled his miraculous pet. "Thank you," he said as he scratched behind its ears. "You brought some light and silliness and fun into my life. I can't let you waste away like this." He had the pistol in one hand. Bad form, but he needed for both their sakes to keep cuddling till the last moment. He pointed out into the woods, saw the cute beady eyes peek in that direction, changed his grip, and set his intention the same way he'd torn the cardboard. "Goodbye."

The shot rang out and his friend collapsed, like a deflated balloon.

The toon skunk didn't reappear on his shoulder when he turned away, didn't bounce out of the fridge or up from the silverware drawer. It should have; it would have been funny. Walter planted flowers above the spot where he'd buried the skunk in its box of light. "There's nothing in this world quite as bright and cheerful as you," he said to the mound of dirt. "This is as close an offering as I can give."

His story when people asked was that he'd had to put down a stray dog he'd taken in. That was enough to get people to leave him alone in the dark again.

#

"And then what?" asked that cop, Fleischer. The other was called Iwerks, he'd said at some point.

They were sitting in the living room and Walter stared down into the table, hands on knees. Walter said, "The flowers -- they grew in a week. Glowing like you see on the crops, at night." He stood unsteadily and opened the porch door so that they could all see, faintly through the outer stalks of corn.

"And you've been growing these... cartoon plants ever since?" asked Iwerks. "Is that what they are?"

Walter went to the fridge, got himself a beer, and looked back at the cops. They stared out the back door with wishful thoughts in their eyes. He'd had that expression himself. Walter pulled out two more cans and offered them; the cops didn't bother protesting and just nodded in thanks. "Partly the same stuff. It's tainted, or blessed, or whatever you want to call it. The dirt and the plants and water in the soil." He laughed bitterly. "Send the EPA out here so they can have a heart attack."

"So if you'd just --" Fleischer started to say. Iwerks shut him up with a glare.

Walter sank back into his chair and drank. "If I'd thought to plant the box faster? Maybe. I had no idea of the physics involved. Since then I've tried to learn. I warn you this is all in the dead drops -- but one of the main things I figured out is, the toon-touched matter can spread. The total mass grows when it's part of living things. It converts water and I guess air. You end up with this stuff." He handed over the lump of starlight and watched them play with it. It was meant to be played with.

"So you're a cartoon scientist now," said Fleischer.

Iwerks found that he'd molded the blob into a model police car, far more detailed than ought to be possible. He held it up and saw a box of doughnuts inside. "Matter that defies physics just a little?"

"Seems that way. It's the closest thing to toon-stuff that can survive here."

The model car glittered like galaxies seen through scattered clouds. Even Fleischer admitted, "It's pretty, whatever it is."

Walter had been hiding for too long. He set down his beer, paused, and opened the basement door. Jefferson bounded out, squashing for a moment as he landed in Walter's arms.

The cops stared. Iwerks said, "That fur..." The cat had gone tiger-striped, its eyes and paws and ears exaggerated, whole body faintly glowing if you squinted.

Walter rubbed the cat's belly. "He was dying on me too, a few months later. By then I had tainted potatoes and carrots. I think a rabbit got some of those. I fed Jefferson some of the spuds."

Iwerks looked at his beer again. "You didn't..."

"Slip you a Mickey? No, it's just beer. But I do have a jar of glow water. Anyway, Jefferson got better. But different." He would've been all alone otherwise.

Officer Iwerks stood, suddenly angry. "Then why didn't you do more with this stuff? You have something that's practically magic, here!"

"I've been experimenting."

"In one little house, with one person, paranoid about the government stealing it all? You healed your cat, man! Why haven't you gone around to hospitals?"

Taken aback, Walter looked into the still-bright eyes of his old cat. For him the encounter with the skunk had been a personal thing, a secret to be studied and kept. He'd nurtured the plants and soil, fast-growing but still taking many seasons to get to the fraction of an acre he had. The garden was a place he could come home to after work and have a bit of light beyond what seemed possible. "I've wanted to keep it," he said, eyes downcast.

"It's time for you to change that. Mister Avery, you have something special. You obviously value your freedom -- but isn't part of that a duty to use what you've got? I don't mean you have to turn this all over to the authorities. Hell, charge money if you want. But don't just hoard it. Please."

Walter looked over at him, feeling small. "I don't want to lose it all."

"But it grows, right? You said so. Sell some, give some to the childrens' hospital downtown, hawk it on an auction site. I don't care. But put it out there. We'll back you if anyone tries to steal it. Right, Fleischer?" The other cop nodded.

Walter thought back to the brief days of joy he'd had with the living toon. He'd been selfish in the worst way, in hindsight, not really looking to his own interests so much as hiding the wonder he could share with others. "Are there ways we could swing this?" he asked. "Get it on TV, prove this is real, get attention before any thieves swoop in?"

"I'm sure we can find a way."

He didn't know yet what the future would bring to himself and his changed cat. He had a substance touched by light from another world, almost but not quite too wonderful to exist on its own. Now, Walter decided, the cute little visitor would want him to show off his crop of starlight.