Bewilderment

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I COULD SEE THE WEEKLY CHANGES. He was quicker to laugh now, slower to flare. More playful when frustrated. He sat still and listened to the birds at dusk. I wasn’t sure which qualities were his and which came courtesy of his team. Each day’s small changes blended into him and went native.

One night, I made a planet for him where the several species of intelligent life traded bits of temperament and memory and behavior and experiences as easily as Earthly bacteria trade snippets of genes. He grabbed my arm, smiling, before I could add the details. I know where you stole that one from!

“Do you, now? Who told you?”

He spread his fingers and attached them to my skull, making a sucking sound, as bits of our personality flew back and forth between us. Wouldn’t it be cool if everybody started to do the training?

I put my fingers on his skull in exchange, sucking bits of his private emotions out through my fingertips and into me, accompanied by appropriate sound effects. We laughed. Then he clapped my shoulder, like he was calming me down before sending me to bed. The gesture was so preternaturally adult. It came from a place that hadn’t been there the week before.

“So what do you think?” I tried for amused and offhand. “The mouse. He’s changing?”

His eyes took hold of the puzzle. He remembered, and the solution blazed in his eyes. Still the same mouse, Dad. I just have help now.

“Tell me how that works, Robbie.”

You know how when you talk to someone stupid and it makes you stupid, too?

“I do know that feeling. Very well.”

But when you play a game against someone smart, you start making better moves?

I tried to remember if he’d spoken like this a month ago.

Well, it’s like that. Like walking onto the playground. But three really smart, funny, and strong guys are walking with you.

“Do… they have names?”

Who?

“These three guys?”

He laughed like a much younger kid. They’re not really guys. They’re just… my allies.

“But… there are three of them?”

He shrugged, more defensive, more like my son. Three. Or four. Who cares? That’s not the point. Just: like, they’re helping to row the boat or something. My crew.

I told him he was my mouse of mouses. I told him his mother loved him. I said he should always feel free to tell me anything interesting that he was finding out about the boat ride.

Maybe I hugged him too hard on my way out of the room. He pulled away and shook me by the upper arms.

Dad! It’s no big deal. Just… He stuck out a pair of fingers from each hand and crossed them against each other. Hashtag life skills, right?