"Where are you?"
Asking a question again and again doesn't change the answer.
It had only been a few days, then, since the Canary Village had been initiated. Podunk took pride in its wildlife, though it only added to its podunk-y name, and especially the birdsong that vivified their mornings — especially appreciable on the weekdays, when the children went to school and the grownups almost wished they were around to keep them busy and drive them mad.
The Canary Village could be attributed to altruism, as that glorified the cause and so encouraged it. It could, to similar effect, be attributed to pride in one's own town. But few could deny that part of it was the fact that the people found the canaries endearing, with their own little families and all. In fact, to be said to love another so much that even the little canaries in the village were jealous was a compliment of the highest order, an honour all but synonymous with George and Maria, the young couple that had tragically disappeared one evening.
Months passed in their absence, with neither hide nor hair of the couple, even after the paranormal phenomena running rampant through America disappeared. Stories, to the tone of George's own beloved writing, were spun of what had befallen the couple, and though few of them could claim any credibility, hope of their return slowly died.
George, 34, and Maria, 31, were pronounced dead after thirteen months of waiting.
George's hair had grown grey, though hardly two years had passed since he'd gone missing. Wide as his eyes were, they were unfocused, and they blinked violently. There was dust on the piano, and on the small table in the corner where he used to write, and it made him cough, though he didn't make an effort to rectify this as he searched.
What was he looking for? The god's tail? No, that doesn't add up. It was something he'd left behind before he'd left. Where was it? Where were they? No, were they here? Why would they be here?
George and Maria's son and daughter weren't there anymore. The house was empty.
His brain put two and two together. It understood that his son and daughter shouldn't be here anymore, it would be irrational. There was no chance the townspeople would just leave them there. It stood to reason that they'd been taken in by someone, and because they were the children of George and Maria, they would be raised well.
But although perfectly processed by his mind, George failed to give this reasoning any import, and instead lingered upon the fact at face value. Face value is the right term, because the fact was registered very bluntly, as-is, and didn't elicit a response from him beyond the fact that it put an end to his search.
In a town such as Podunk, such things don't happen often. Such things, therefore, were special, and were permanently embedded in popular consciousness. The doors to the house were left open, so that any who wished could enter and reminisce. The town's love for the couple struggled with fear of the paranormal, however, and most visits were cut short once the individual set foot on the porch. Making off with their furniture wouldn't cross anyone's mind.
The patchwork, on the other hand, and the carnations Maria had so prized, were maintained by the women who'd spent afternoons with Maria, tending to them. They took to these the way one directs their attachment and expression, if not to the intended recipient, to that which they most associate with said recipient. And Maria's floral motif in her illustrations of George's scoops had seen to that.
Their son had been suffering. He'd reported hearing voices when there was no one in his presence, and visions of things yet to come, or of things that never came to pass but persisted in his mind. Unless recorded, dreams will generally fade from an untrained mind, but he'd remembered his in vivid detail.
There was every sign that the boy had inherited his father's brilliant mind, and his unique skill of reading people. On the piano he was surpassed only by his mother. But he was frail and sickly. It wasn't just that he couldn't keep up with the other kids — he would suddenly be taken over by fever and nausea, but then the symptoms would leave just as suddenly as they'd appeared.
But the most perturbing of all was his fear. That fear, that fear that no one could understand. As intelligent as he was, his attention was detached from what everyone perceived to be reality. In class, sometimes he would stare in the direction of the teacher, and yet not take in a word they said, his eyes reaching out beyond to something only he could see or sense. He would go to his mother and tell her of the things he'd seen, so many mysterious shapes, surrounded by them, human-like but not human, just shadows and silhouettes. And she, not understanding but loving him all the same, would entertain all he said.
This did not tarnish him in the eyes of the town — he was still the son of the best-loved family in Podunk, still such a precocious youth in other aspects. His reports, his alleged visions, were seen not as a problem, but as a manifestation of his youthful imagination, the creativity he'd inherited. Over time, they believed, he would refine this creativity to fantastic literature. It wasn't that he was different from them, he was just special. As George saw in hindsight, this perspective, this undue and undying optimism of the townspeople towards him, must have been the most frustrating — painful — of all for the child.
In 1908, the knowledge set in that the mysterious phenomena — poltergeists, UFOs, and other nonsense on the same lines — were real, and not just the product of imagination or fiction. People were run out of their homes, corpses rose from the graves. A dark cloud had descended upon Mt. Itoi, the sacred mountain near Ellay. Investigations into the matter were futile. Though he was a man eternally seeking the hard, raw truth, being the intrepid reporter that he'd been, and so was a skeptic by nature, even George couldn't deny any of this.
Even though they hadn't witnessed any of these incidents firsthand, George and Maria's son was the most terrified of all. He refused to leave the house, even to play with his friends. He was always shallow in breath, biting down on his trembling lower lip, as if anticipating something. And quiet, he was so quiet…
"No, don't! You can't leave me alone!" the only time he raised his voice was when George expressed his intention to investigate the matters himself.
"It's all right, all right," George would reassure with a grin, dismissing his son's warnings as childish fear.
"Your father, sweetie, will send them packing! Don't you worry," Maria, on the other hand, was willing to humour these childish musings.
"H-He will…?"
"On my honour, son," George would join in.
"The g-g-ghosts? Poltergeists? Zombies? …Aliens?"
"All of them, son. It'll all be okay."
Then, for a few moments, he would be silent, the storm appearing to have passed. But then he would have to burst into wails, and clamp up, and sulk, like the child he was, and George would have no choice but to stay. George tried again, several days in a row.
Asking a question again and again doesn't change the answer. Their son continued to resist.
Heh. But who was the child here? Every time his son asked him not to go, George's desire to do so grew more intense, the way a child does exactly what he or she is not supposed to. His son's condition — that was the new term he adopted, because he'd realized it wasn't something he could overlook anymore — just gave the investigation personal incentive. He had to go, he just had to, even if it was inconsiderate towards his son.
When he had one of these fits, the only way to calm him down was to get him to sit by his sister. She was still very young then, but as he sat and stared at her, his face would undergo a series of transitions, from helplessness, to subdued wrath, to despair, to a flicker of hope, and then, finally, a resigned calm with the air of someone who'd confided all their worries and received reassurance for them.
And one day, when, calmed by whatever sibling-y communication he had with his sister, his son was sound asleep for the first time in days, George finally left for Mt. Itoi—
Haha. Who'd been the child here? Couldn't keep his nose out of anything.
Maria was never keen on lying — the people of Podunk kept no secrets from each other — but, to give her son heart, she denied that George had left to look into these phenomena. No, George was merely stricken with wanderlust, she assured him; he would be back soon.
Her son did not buy it, any of it, but he didn't complain, either. There wasn't any point doing that anymore. It was too late. The evening of the day George returned, with the look in his eye that meant he'd got a darn good scoop, George and Maria disappeared without a trace.
George was back. The aliens had no power over him. He'd defied them, and he'd been successful. He had their own technology with him. With this, he could create things far beyond human conception. But his family was gone. New beginnings aren't always hopeful. George had got a game over, and continuing is painful.
He adamantly refused to consider this, and instead took solace in the practical side of his mind. Yes, he could strike back. Giygas was still young, too young. With this alien technology, he would create a great robot, one that would herald the eve of the aliens' fall. And his son's PSI — he knew all too much about it now, but he still had more to learn. Though he'd ignored it once, he wouldn't ignore it ever again. He would learn all about it if it took the rest of his life, if he had one left.
He would get everything back to how things had been before that fateful evening, when he'd seen his children for the last time. How much time had passed? What, just two years? That was nothing. Nothing at all. He could get Maria back, and together, they would find their children. He would finally understand his son and his daughter.
He'll do it all, won't he?
No.
Of course he will! He will! Won't he?
Asking a question again and again doesn't change the answer.