Devolution

A picture hung above every child's bed in the orphanage. Over Seto's bed was a drawing of a fat toddler clutching a scepter, clad in robes, crown, and a sour pout. Over Mokuba's bed hung a painting of a little lion cub with a black mane trapped underneath a net. It was a depressing picture, and even as a child Seto knew that the choice of decoration was in poor taste.

Shortly after the brothers were sent to live in the orphanage, Mokuba started to sleepwalk. He was only four when they arrived. Seto was nine. Seto would wake to Mokuba's stirrings, follow the sounds to wherever Mokuba was pacing, or crouching, or staring sightlessly into space, put an arm around him, and lead him back to bed. Sometimes, when Mokuba was particularly rooted to a spot, Seto would bend his knees, wrap his arms around Mokuba's ribs, and carry him back to bed.

One night, Seto woke up to silence. It was strange and eerie, that silence. He rolled over in bed and found himself looking into cavernous dark eyes. Mokuba stared down at him, and Seto had no way of knowing that eight years later he would see that look on his little brother's face again. At that moment, he wasn't even sure that this was his brother, that this wasn't some sort of doppelganger. He bunched his blankets under his chin.

Mokuba spoke. "She turned inside out, Seto," he said, his voice as hollow and dark as his eyes. "I killed her."

Seto put his hand on top of Mokuba's head and wordlessly led him back to bed. Mokuba did not resist. He lay down when he got back to bed, and, this time, Seto did not tuck the blankets around them. He just threw the covers over Mokuba and went back to bed, curling himself tightly in the middle of the mattress.

The next night, after dinner, when the brothers were cleaning their room in preparation for bed, they were visited by Mr. and Mrs. Prosser. Mr. and Mrs. Prosser ran the orphanage, and it was hard to tell whether they were husband and wife or mother and son. Mr. Prosser was a square- jawed man with close- set, beady eyes and a strange nose with a prominent bridge that started directly between his eyes and then sloped straight down. His body was womanly, with flaring hips and cushiony buttocks. Mrs. Prosser had a square jaw and thin, long lips. Her Barbie-doll eyes bulged. Her teeth were white tiles set in horsey gums. When they entered the room Mokuba and Seto stopped what they were doing and stood at attention.

"Young man," Mr. Prosser barked at Mokuba, "this has got to stop. This getting up in the middle of the night and wandering around is a hazard to people and property."

"You must think of the other children, dear," Mrs. Prosser said through her plaster smile. "You must think of us. What if you break something?"

"Mokie hasn't broken anything," Seto said. "He usually just goes somewhere and sits on the floor, or looks out the window—"

"I wasn't addressing you!" Mr. Prosser's face was already reddening with agitation. "You think this is normal, for him to go gallivanting around at ungodly hours, doing God knows what? NO. It is abnormal. It is deviant."

"Now, now, dear," Mrs. Prosser patted her husband (son?) on the shoulder with a small hand. The palm was plump, and the fingers bony. Her nails were long and shiny. She turned to the brothers. "You see how upset you've made him? How do you feel now, knowing that you've caused him such pain?" Her face shifted and changed with each word, becoming stonier and colder, her voice coarser with each syllable. "Do you know how much money we put into this orphanage? It didn't spring up from the ground looking this cozy and nice. And the insurance! What if Mokuba falls down the stairs and breaks his neck? It would ruin us."

"This can't happen again," Mr. Prosser raised his fist. "I have found a solution, and tonight that solution will be implemented. I am going to retrieve it from my office now, and when I get back, I expect both of you to have your pajamas on and your teeth brushed." He turned and stomped out, his wife/mother following, and clicked the door shut behind them both. The boys changed into their coarse, yellowish linen pajamas.

"Seto," Mokuba whispered, "Do you think they're going to spank me?" Mr. Prosser was quite handy with belts, and Mrs. Prosser, while preferring to give swats on the butt while crying that discipline couldn't possibly hurt the child more than it hurt her, was a master of improvisation with rulers and wooden spoons.

"Of course not, Mokie," Seto was gearing himself up to fling himself into the path of a striking strap if need be. "They know you're not doing it on purpose. And if they try, I won't let them."

But when the Prossers returned, they were not carrying any belts or rulers or wooden spoons. They were carrying a mass of canvas. They stopped at the foot of Mokuba's bed.

"Did you brush your teeth?" Mr. Prosser's looked at Mokuba from a sideways angle, his eyes wide,

Mokuba nodded.

Mr. Prosser jerked his head toward the bed. "Go on then."

Mokuba crawled onto the mattress on all fours. He paused on his hands and knees and gazed at the Prossers, waiting for their next instructions.

"LIE DOWN," Mr. Prosser's shoulders shook. Mokuba belly-flopped onto the top of his blankets. Mrs. Prosser sighed. She set down her side of the canvas and it unfurled on the floor. Seto could see that the canvas had squares cut out of it. Mrs. Prosser yanked the covers down from the head of the bed, covering Mokuba's legs. She grabbed Mokuba by the elbows, flipped him around so his head was on the pillow, and covered him up. She went back to the foot of the bed and gathered up her end of the canvas. Mr. and Mrs. Prosser started to unroll the canvas over Mokuba's bed, Mr. Prosser on one side, Mrs. Prosser on the other.

Mokuba lay flat under the covers, his eyes rolling back toward the Prossers as the canvas grew and spread and consumed the navy blue bed covers little by little. Seto expected it to stop at Mokuba's neck, but it just kept going, until the Prossers had pulled it over Mokuba's head and tucked it between the top of the mattress and the wall.

Mr. Prosser pulled two heavy canvas straps from the back of his belt. Iron buckles clacked onto the floor, making a sound like biting jaws, like bones striking steel. Seto's jaw clenched.

Mr. and Mrs. Prosser got on their knees on both sides of the bed. Mr. Prosser reached under the bed and handed an end to Mrs. Prosser, who moved to the end of the bed and worked her clasp through a loop. Mr. Prosser did the same on his end. The click and schwoop of the buckles as they were cinched and yanked had a dreadful finality.

Mr. Prosser moved to the foot of the bed and passed the end of the second strap to Mrs. Prosser. Mrs. Prosser moved to the head of the bed. Buckles were attached and straps were pulled. Mr. and Mrs. Prosser moved around the bed, jerking here and there. When they were done, they stepped back and admired their handiwork.

Mokuba was pressed down into the mattress by the weight of the canvas. The bed spread was visible through the lattice. Mokuba's hair poked through the squares. He could barely lift his head, his arms, or his legs. Seto saw him trying to move his limbs. The canvas stirred only slightly.

Mr. Prosser wiped his brow. "Well, that should do it," he puffed. Then he turned and strode out of the room. Mrs. Prosser followed. She was almost gone when Seto called to her.

"Mrs. Prosser," Seto ran to her side. He didn't want Mokuba to hear what he had to ask her. "What if Mokie has to go to the bathroom?"

Mrs. Prosser's smile widened until it crossed the line and became a grimace. "Well, dear," she said, "we'll just have to wait until the morning. If Mokuba has an accident, and I hope he doesn't, he'll just have to clean it up and wear rubber pants until he stops the behavior. But I wouldn't worry, dear. He went before he went to bed, didn't he, like a good boy? Of course he did. Now go to sleep."

She turned out the light and closed the door behind her.

Seto spent the next half hour figuring out how to undo the buckles and straps by moonlight so Mokuba could use the toilet, and another half hour figuring out how to re-do them so they wouldn't get into trouble the next morning.

Over the course of the next few weeks, summer shyly moved in. The nights came a little later and left a little earlier. The heat moved in with the light, and, together, the two set up housekeeping, taking their territory inch by inch.

One night, while it was still bright as day, Seto wasn't feeling well. His stomach muscles clenched, doubling him over. He tried to eat a little bit of bread, but it was like throwing a rock into a bucket too close to flowing over—the pressure increased and threatened to burst his intestines. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on keeping control. He focused on clenching every muscle in his body, on pulling every thing up toward his head. Maybe it would work. Yes. Seto felt some of the pressure ease. The boil went down to a simmer.

One of the older boys shoved him lightly on the shoulder. "Seto, get in the kitchen. You're on duty."

Seto squinted at the boy silhouetted in the lowering sunshine. "Why? Where's Dennis?"

"Bastard got adopted out yesterday. Come on."

Seto turned to Mokuba. "Will you be okay, Mokie?"

Mokuba smiled. "Sure, Seto. I'll color in our room until Mrs. Prosser puts me to bed."

Seto smiled back, but inside he felt a snap of anger. The anger knotted all his muscles. The pain in his guts intensified. Mokuba should have had that canvas taken off of him by now. Every night, he went to the bathroom and pushed and pushed until every drop of urine was gone from his bladder. He wouldn't drink for three hours before bed. He sometimes panted in the night from thirst, from the oppressive heat of the canvas, from the effort of trying to turn in his sleep. Sometimes, Seto would get a glass of water and dribble it into Mokuba's suckling lips, wiping away any that fell onto his chin and rolled into the folds of baby fat on his neck. It made Seto want to cry, but he knew crying accomplished nothing.

Mokuba went to bed and Seto went to the kitchen to begin washing dishes. The sun still hung bright in the sky. It had cooled from noon-day whiteness to an evening red. Seto had learned recently that the sun doesn't cool off at night, or change color. It was the world that was fickle in temperature and color; the sun was constant.

Seto's fingers were numb as he picked up plates, dipped them in the soapy water, then put them in the drying rack. Sweat ran down his sides from his armpits and soaked the waist of his pants from the small of his back. He licked his lips, and they cracked under his tongue. He was straining all his muscles up toward his head, standing on his toes from the effort. All the blood in his body was channeled into two spots on his cheeks, two little red suns that burned and prickled. Everywhere else was cold, so cold he trembled. This was hell.

Please, he thought. Sweat ran into his eyes and he blinked at it, his eyelids scraping his eyeballs. Please make the pain stop. He stared at the sun. It was the most powerful thing he knew. It could obliterate anything and everything. Please, please, please.

His intestines kinked and twisted inside him. He doubled over and cried out. Every little muscle was a barbed fist. The pain was excruciating, but it was soon overshadowed by horror as the fists relaxed their grips and the cramp went as suddenly as it came, and he felt hot, foul water stream down his legs.

All the boys looked at him when he doubled over and cried out. Murmurs spread through the room, shouts, "What the hell is wrong with that kid?" "I'm getting Mrs. Prosser." And then there was silence as the other boys realized what had happened. Then Seto entered the second circle of hell.

"Oh, God!"

"Jesus Christ, he's shit himself!"

"Get him out of here!"

Two older boys grabbed Seto's arms and dragged him out of the kitchen and into the hallway, leaving a trail of unmentionable droplets. Seto was sobbing now, sobbing without sound, his chest heaving but no cries coming from his mouth. He could feel the fluid cool and contract in his pants.

Mrs. Prosser came around the corner, a charging blonde bull.

"What is this?" She shrieked. She stopped when she saw Seto. She put a hand over her mouth. "Oh, God."

Her eely arms snatched Seto away from the boys. "Go back to the kitchen!" She roared. She didn't sound like Mrs. Prosser. She was a bawling, roaring, foaming minotaur.

She dragged Seto outside. He couldn't feel the ground under his feet. She flung him out into the red glares and yellowish gazes of the summer evening. She yanked off his clothes, catching his skin on her fingernails, spitting words Seto couldn't make out.

When he was naked, she pulled out the hose. She jerked the nozzle with so much force it almost came off in her hands.

The water was a blizzard of stinging ice on Seto's skin. It knocked the wind out of him; it knocked him over. He pushed himself back up onto his knees, the water hitting him full-force in the face and blinding him. His blood vessels pinched shut from cold. Finally, the water stopped.

There was a bonfire in the yard. The Prossers had trimmed back some trees and were burning the dead branches. Mrs. Prosser pointed a skeletal finger at his filthy clothes, and then at the bonfire. Seto stared at her. She swung her arm back at the clothes, and then to the bonfire. Seto didn't understand. She flung the hose down onto the concrete patio with a clang.

"PICK UP YOUR FILTH AND THROW IT IN THE FIRE!" Her blonde pink face was swollen and blotchy, Seto carefully picked up his clothes in his fingertips, holding them as far away from his body as possible, and threw them into the fire. The diarrhea had been washed away but he could still feel it clinging to his body, settling into his pores and entering his bloodstream.

Mrs. Prosser snatched him up again and dragged him back inside, down the hall, and to the laundry room. Some boys were sitting in the common room, playing cards. They didn't look up when Seto's nude body was dragged past them—or did they?

Mrs. Prosser tossed Seto into the mildewed laundry room, slamming the door shut behind her. She turned on the sink full blast. Steam rose from the water that filled the basin. Seto shivered. The cold was icing his bones.

Mrs. Prosser put on heavy rubber gloves the color of erasers. They squeaked. She picked up a boar's -hair brush. She lifted Seto and dipped him into the scalding water.

He screamed. It felt like his skin was bubbling and peeling away.

She yanked him out of the water and scrubbed him with the boar's-hair brush. Lather ran down Seto's legs and pooled around his feet. She was spitting out words again, and this time he heard her.

"Nasty…Little…Piece of filth… little better than an animal…belongs in a sewer…"

She dipped the brush into the hot water over and over, scrubbing Seto's legs, chest, belly, ass, and crotch. It was like being stung by a billion bees. Seto's tears and cries of pain were a rock in his chest, lodged in his esophagus. It was trying to get out, it was tearing him apart, but all he could do was sob, and whimper.

Finally, Mrs. Prosser's arm went limp and the brush fell to the soapy floor with a hollow slap. Seto was falling, too. His tears were mixing into the foamy pool surrounding his feet, and he was going limp. Mrs. Prosser caught him.

She lifted him onto the counter and covered him with a towel, then turned and walked away. She didn't need to tell him not to move, or she would be right back. He knew. He was too weak to move. The pain of his skin was fading from a sear to a throb.

Mrs. Prosser came back. She was carrying something white and puffy. At first, Seto didn't know what it was. Then the thing started to take shape, and his mind refused to believe it. He looked at Mrs. Prosser's glossy, determined eyes.

"No," he whispered. "No, no, please no. I'm better now, really."

She moved next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. He grabbed her wrist and tried to push her away, but he was too weak.

"Please, please, I'll sleep in the bathroom. Just, please, no, no, no…"

Mrs. Prosser pushed Seto onto his back on the counter. He tried to twist away, but she pulled him toward her until his legs were trapped between her belly and the counter's edge. She wrestled the cotton and plastic underneath him and threaded it through his legs. Seto covered his eyes with his hands as she opened a drawer and then closed it again. The tape made a flatulent ripping as she wrapped it around his upper thighs, attaching the cloth to his skin.

"There now," she said. Her voice was calm and cheerful. "That'll keep you from ripping it off. You'll have to wait until I take the baby oil to the sticky in the morning."

She sat Seto up. He wrapped the towel around his legs. She didn't take it away after she lifted him from the counter.

The walk back to his room was slow and surreal. The other boys were in their rooms, but he could imagine them peeking through cracks in doors and holes in walls, watching his walk of shame.

Mrs. Prosser pushed him into his and Mokuba's dark room. She closed the door behind him.

Seto walked to his bed. The tape was yanking the tiny, fine fuzz that covered his inner thighs. The puckers of the diaper's legs chafed his skin. He pulled open his drawer and lifted out a pair of pajamas, and then pushed the drawer smoothly shut. He put on his pajamas, stretching out the waist as far as it could go as he pulled it over the diaper, and climbed into bed. The thing felt huge between his legs. His skin was stained from his filth. He knew it. He felt it.

He let his head fall to the side to look out the window at the moon. Sometimes, the moon was sharp and silvery blue, and sometimes it was fuzzy and golden, like tonight. It was the most powerful thing in the world, next to the sun. It was watery and gentle and serene, full of mysteries and secrets. Seto loved it more than the sun.

The moon was looking at Mokuba, because its light was falling on him. Mokuba was lying on his belly, his head turned away from Seto. He looked so precious to Seto, so small, but noble and bright, a prince. This wonderful little prince was trapped under canvas.

Please, Seto thought, please, let me die tonight. Let me just die in my sleep. Let us both die. Set us free.

But right when Seto said those words in his head, another voice inside him screamed NO. Seto lifted his head and slammed it into the pillow, then again, and again. He had to punish his brain for thinking those thoughts, shake them right out of his head. How could he ever think of dying? What was wrong with him?

He heard a rustle. Mokuba was stirring under his canvas net. He lifted his head as high as he could and turned it toward Seto, his nose pushing into the pillow. His eyes gazed at Seto. Mokuba's eyes were full of sadness and empathy, but there was hope in those eyes, too, and trust, and that trust was for Seto. Because Seto saw that hope and trust, he knew that Mokuba didn't know what he was wearing under his covers, and never would know.

He would keep that hope and trust alive in Mokuba. He would keep it blazing, and it would burn away all of Mokuba's fears and sadness.

As for Seto, he would keep his anger and his pride freshly stoked.