by Harshvardhan Siddharthan

Nudes aren’t allowed, cartoons or advertisements suggesting sex are not allowed, ads for any adult services aren’t allowed — all these get deleted. Sexual organs such as penises or breasts implied but not depicted (eg with bananas or sandbags) are flagged. Boobs. Woman laughing with a bowl of salad; a girl playing with her dog laughing; a woman smiling with a new set of knives, a flight attendant smiling and pouring coffee. Boobs. It was repetitive and monotonous. AI filtered most things correctly but there was the occasional mistake. Krishna liked the job. He didn’t have to think. He always worked with headphones on, listening to music until the siren blared, informing them that their shift had ended.

Back at home Krishna changed out of his work clothes, fixed himself a bowl of Maggi and turned on the TV. There was nothing interesting to watch. He put on Planet Earth and crushed some weed. Just as a brilliant pink sun set behind a lone polar bear floating on an ice floe, Krishna grabbed his jacket and headed out.

The wind was too fierce to light the joint so he squatted behind a mango tree and cupped his hands. That’s when he first felt it. Krishna yelped like he hadn’t yelped since he was a child. His first thought was a leech but there were no leeches where he lived.

Though it was a full moon night Krishna turned on the torchlight on his phone to get a better look. There was something on his leg, attached to his calf, right below his knee, gulping his blood hungrily. The creature — whatever the fuck it was — was about two inches long and had no determinate shape. It quivered almost constantly and like a well used bar of soap it was misshapen, neither rectangular nor circular, but some odd shape that kept changing. It had no eyes, no ears and no face but it did have a mouth with which it had attached itself to Krishna’s calf. The mouth was at the end of an elongated snout that opened and retracted minutely every time the creature sucked Krishna’s blood, like a telescope. It had no legs but instead all over the surface of its body it had curlicueing strands of blue-green tentacle-antennae: tens of hundreds of these of various sizes and lengths. These tentacle-antennae seemed to have a sentience of their own — they moved any which way, independently of each other.  Some reaching out, testing the air, others circling around his leg or trying to, while the majority seemed to wave and sway like palm fronds, simply feeling their way about. Most peculiar of all, the creature appeared to be colourless or rather it appeared to be translucent for you could see some of its organs. Krishna thought it was the most disgusting thing he’d ever seen.

He’d had enough. He tried at first to shake it off but that was no good. He then grabbed a stone and tried to scrape it off but that was no good either — he only ended up vigorously scraping his own knee. There was only one thing left to do. He stared at it for a full five minutes, watching its mouth squeeze and gulp hungrily, its tentacle-antennae swaying wildly. He prayed and waited, hoping that as suddenly as the creature had torn into him, it would just as suddenly tear off of him and go back to wherever it had come from. But seconds stretched into minutes and the creature continued sucking just as hungrily. He gave himself five more minutes. Then he gave himself another five minutes while he finished a cigarette. Finally he worked up the resolve to pull it out with his own hands. He lunged at it with his right hand, fingers bunched into a fist as if he were going to grab and yank it but he stopped. He lit another cigarette. This time he approached with just his thumb and index finger extended and pinched an especially long curlicueing tentacle-antenna, daintily trying to pry the creature off. It was awful, the tentacle-antenna squirmed and fought in his hand like a living thing. No sooner had he caught hold of it that he let it go, regretting ever having touched it. With the creature still firmly planted on his leg, Krishna started walking home.

The walk back home was long but it took longer still. The creature was relentless. It was sucking at him as if its life depended on it; maybe it did. It didn’t hurt as much as it was disconcerting. Every now and then Krishna would hear something distinct, difficult to describe — like the noise of twigs breaking underfoot or a zipper being pulled; evidently satisfied gulps as the snout released the blood it had sucked into the creature’s body.

Krishna considered stopping by Hakeem Saab’s house but it was well past midnight and he was afraid he would have a lot of explaining and talking to do. Krishna decided he would show himself to the doctor first thing tomorrow and so kept on walking.

With every step now he felt himself weaken. Just as he thought he would collapse, Krishna saw his house up ahead. He fumbled with the lock twice before he got it opened. Inside he didn’t bother turning on the light and crashed on his sofa in front of the TV. which was playing yet another episode of Planet Earth. The translucent creature bathed in the light of the TV. appeared gray-blue as it continued sucking his blood.

When Krishna woke up the creature was gone. He didn’t look for it, he hoped it had gone for good. His leg had several tiny perforations, little pin-prick sized holes like those left immediately after an injection. The tiny holes were in no discernible pattern or at least no pattern Krishna could discern. Its teeth must have been pretty fucking sharp — it had bitten clean through a brand new pair of jeans to get to his calf. Krishna left the windows and door open in case the creature was still lurking and needed a way out.

Hakeem Saab twirled and untwirled the end of his long grey beard around his index finger as he regarded the tiny holes on Krishna’s leg.

‘And this creature was about an inch long you said.’

‘Two inches’ Krishna muttered. This was harder than he had imagined.

‘What were you doing in the jangal alone in the middle of the night anyway?’

‘Sometimes…sometimes I go for a walk. It is peaceful there at night. I can be by myself.’

‘Don’t you live alone?’ To this Krishna said nothing.

‘Well as far as I can tell there seems to be no ill effects. But still it is better to get a toxicology test done seeing as you were bitten by something neither you nor I recognise. I have lived here all my life but who knows? Science discovers something new everyday,’ Hakeem Saab concluded skeptically.

Krishna nodded. ‘Go to G.B. Pant and ask for Dr. Ganga Ram. He will know what to do. He is a good friend of mine so he will keep me in the loop. In the meantime don’t exert yourself. Diseases sometimes remain dormant and the symptoms might not show for days, even years. Meet Dr. Ganga Ram at once. In the meantime, take rest and drink lots of orange juice to replenish the blood you have lost.’

‘Thank you doctor.’ Krishna had his hand on the door when Hakeem Saab spoke up again. ‘And beta don’t mind my saying this. I only say this out of concern and because I was a good friend of your father’s.’ Hakeem Saab paused. ‘It is good that you like walking but you shouldn’t smoke so much beta. It is not good for health. You have your whole life ahead of you, why throw it all away over nothing?’

They both knew Hakeem Saab was only politely referring to cigarettes. Krishna thanked him again, promised to return soon for a follow-up and left.

Sprawled on the sofa, Krishna was still in his work clothes. He was just about to load up another bowl when he heard that low sort of guttural sound again — difficult to place but unmistakable — like the snapping of twigs or the zipping of zips. His heart sunk. ‘Fuck’ he said but didn’t move. A quarter of an hour passed.

The sound again. This time he got up and found it. It was hiding in a hole in his wall behind the TV. Many of its tentacle-antennae had retracted:  only a few remained. Its snout was opening and closing mechanically, its mouth was crowded with teeth.

Once again Krishna was faced with the unsavory prospect of grabbing it to throw it out. It didn’t look particularly hard or strong…maybe if he hit it forcefully enough with his cricket bat or his Dad’s old walking stick? But then, it quivered like it did and as he had known from the start Krishna felt incapable of dealing with it; for the same reason he had never had or wanted pets, even as a child. Animals were sentient yet could not speak. This had always bothered Krishna because he could never know what they wanted. Which to Krishna was the same as saying he did not know how to live with them.

He considered the creature for a minute. He brought a knife from the kitchen and set it on top of the TV, where he could reach it easily. After all he could clearly see the creature’s beating heart. After some hemming and hawing Krishna prodded it ever so slightly. It responded. It unfurled some of its tentacle-antennae and two of them came searching for Krishna’s hand. Their touch was gentle but gross: icky and mucousy; how he’d always imagined the underbelly of a pond frog. Tonight it was not hungry. It merely advanced more of its tentacles that searched Krishna’s body as if to say ‘Hi!’.

Krishna gave in to it. With his one free hand he made a video of him being searched/ acquainted and snapped some photos. Finally when he felt as if his whole arm had been dipped in a vat, Krishna tried to jerk himself free. Almost immediately, perhaps instinctively the creature acquiesced. It withdrew all its tentacle-antennae and returned them neatly behind itself where Krishna couldn’t see.

Krishna hated using voice command but tonight he was so excited that even as he took a long shower he commanded his home operating system to process the photos and videos he had just taken and search the internet. He had ordered the results by relevance, giving preference to academic journals.

Still dripping wet and with just a towel draped around him, Krishna turned on the TV.

‘Did you search non-english databases?’

‘I did.’

‘And this is all you could find?’

‘This is all there is.’

Krishna stared at the three search results in front of him. Two were fan pages for an Iraqi TV show. One was a discussion forum for…something, he wasn’t entirely sure what. He uploaded the photos and videos and waited for people to respond (‘So I found this thing out in the woods last night….I have no idea what it is. Would anybody by any chance know? TY’)

‘OMG. WTF is that?’

‘That might be the FUGLIEST thing I’ve ever seen’

‘I think it’s kind of cute’

‘This shit is wack…they should use it in the Black Forest sequel’

‘Does it have a pussy? Maybe all it needs is love’

‘Where the Fuck did you find this thing?…My God the teeth….I don’t think I can sleep tonight’’

‘My GF said I was being gross..…So then I showed her this: ….Problem solved :P’

‘Wow.. .Does it have a name? Do you know what it’s called?”

‘Props to you for bringing it home man…I would have shot the sonuvabitch right in its ugly mouth’’

‘And I thought cockroaches are freaky’

‘LOL.LOL.LOL.’

‘Is this even real?…Please tell me it’s not real’

Krishna deleted his post. He asked the same question on a few different forums, including forums for zoology and biology hobbyists. He mostly got questions, no answers. On one of the forums a moderator flagged him: ‘I have 35 years experience with the Zoological Survey of India. This creature bears no similarity to any species I have read or even heard about. From the previous messages it would appear that most of my fellow zoologists concur. It is possible this is a species new to science but the photos you have posted clearly show an eight chambered lung which became extinct post the Cambrian explosion. This is a forum reserved for serious scientific discussion among professional zoologists and paleobiologists. Unless you can provide something more concrete than a handful of photographs and videos (i.e. anything not easily digitally renderable or manipulable) or any information beyond “I found this creature in the woods last night”, I doubt this forum can be of any help to you’.

A new day had broken. In the distance he could hear Majeed chacha calling the faithful to prayer. Allah hu Akbar!  Ashadhu an la ilaha iIla Allah! Hayya ala s-salah!

Krishna had about three hours left before he had to report to work. The creature had not budged. As far as Krishna could tell it was compressed and motionless with its snout withdrawn. Only a few tentacle-antennae swayed every now and then like wisps of stray hair. As before, because the tentacle-antennae moved independently, Krishna had difficulty imagining it as part of the same body, the same organism. He fell asleep naming and counting the different muscles and bones in his body, starting with his legs.

Krishna pulled out two 500ml  Pepsi bottles from his bag: one each of chicken blood and goat blood. He had already tried feeding it most anything in his kitchen — blended fruits and vegetables, cow’s milk and goat’s milk, cottage cheese, rancid cottage cheese, mint leaves, rice beer, porridge, whiskey, wine, random chips packets, raw beaten eggs, soya chunks, but the creature showed no interest. He had also tried waving things he had specially purchased from the market in front of the creature’s snout – baby food, chicken liver and chicken feet, goat brain, raw fish, cooked fish, kebabs, goat tongue but again the creature barely moved. It was only then that he had reluctantly asked a bewildered Ismail Qureshi to give him some blood from his next batch of slaughterings; ‘I’ve been working on a slasher film. I tried ketchup but it didn’t look very convincing.’ Krishna didn’t sound convincing either, but that didn’t matter because Qureshi bhai knew him.

Krishna emptied the Pepsi bottles into two ceramic china bowls. He placed them on the TV right next to the hole where the creature lived and waited. Three tentacle-antennae appeared. They hovered around one bowl, then the next. Then three more tentacle-antennae issued forth. Finally the creature squeezed itself out of the gap in his wall and by the aid of its tentacle-antennae pulled itself closer to the brim of the bowl containing chicken blood. Its snout opened, elongating like a ramp being lowered. Its mouth crowded with teeth yawned open and he heard that sound again. The tentacle antennae lit up a bright parrot green. He could see its heart pumping violently, straining against its membranous body, so much so that he was afraid it would leap out. But five excited minutes later, the mouth closed; the snout drew back; the tentacle-antennae retracted and the creature returned to its hole in the wall without having taken so much as a sip. Krishna sighed and sat down on the sofa. When he checked in on it in the morning the china bowls of blood were exactly as he had left them. On his way out, he threw them out along with the empty Pepsi bottles.

***

Thirty minutes into Myths and Shadows he heard that sound again. He tried to ignore it but it was persistent and mechanical this time, like an alarm clock. This was annoying because his team had all but cornered the orcs and taken the citadel, which would have upgraded his Mage to level 3. “I’m sorry guys I’m going to have to log off.” Mxcooky cussed and grondylion15 grumbled but he logged off anyway.

He did not know what it wanted. Krishna chewed his lip. He had a granola bar in his pocket. He dangled it in front of the creature but knew even as he was doing it that this was pointless. He did not like what he had to do next. He left and returned with oven mitts that he had to dust off first because he had not used them in over a year. He pulled down the sleeves of his shirt, put on the oven mitts and jabbed the creature in the one spot where he could not see a tentacle-antenna.

Several tentacle-antennae coiled around his extended arm like Medusa’s hair. The creature slobbered forward, its tentacle-antennae pulling it along, leaving a trail of pus-coloured slime in its wake. Krishna wished he had thought of putting a jacket on. He was in the middle of cursing himself for never having gotten his helmet fixed when he felt a sharp stab of pain; less severe than what he remembered from a week ago, maybe because he was expecting it this time. The creature, sitting on his oven mitts had sunk its teeth right beneath his palm.

At first Krishna fed the creature whenever it cried persistently like an alarm clock. But this was beginning to take a toll on him. He had already missed three days of work. He liked to use off days to travel: trek through the jangal or else go someplace he had never been. It rankled him that he was taking off days but only sleeping through them.

Regular feeding had also bloated the creature. It now filled the hole it lived in and its tentacle-antennae were no longer tucked neatly behind it. They spilled out like a mouthful of spaghetti.

Krishna put on the oven mitts. This time he applied castor oil on his arms before pulling down his sleeves. But the creature bit below his palm and drank as voraciously as ever.

The following night Krishna applied both castor oil and chili powder to his arms. This seemed to do the trick. It gulped hungrier than ever; he could feel its snout jackhammering as it pushed and pulled against his oven mitts; every organ in its body working double speed. With every gulp it increased its intake, its mouth yawning. More hastily than it ever had before the creature withdrew and pulled back into the hole. For the first time in weeks he showed up to work on time. His boss complimented him, commenting that ‘he seems better’ and ‘hoped he would continue to be so.’

On his way back from work Krishna stopped by the pet store to buy a leash. Considering how thin the creature’s skin appeared, Krishna didn’t want to damage its organs. Despite its diet being laced with castor oil and chili powder the creature had steadily grown to the size of a pug or a chihuahua: it now hung awkwardly from the hole it occupied. He squinted his eyes but this hurt after awhile. He moved the TV away from the hole in the wall, pushing it to the corner of the room but this was no use because the room was quite small — even while sitting at the very edge of the sofa he could still see the creature’s blue-green tentacle-antennae flailing about out of the corner of his eyes. Finally he considered switching the sofa and TV so that his back would be turned to the wall but he didn’t like this idea at all because he would no longer be able to see the creature and he was afraid that it could sneak up on him.

He tied the leash into a loose knot around the creature. He had avoided mopping all week because he knew that the creature would leave a trail of pus-coloured slime all over the floor. The leash worked. The creature jiggled into different shapes as if it were trying out clothes until it found one that fit the knot. Krishna pulled and with a soft thud the creature fell to the floor, allowing itself to be lead to the puja room without any resistance whatsoever. Krishna now wished that he hadn’t put this off for weeks: the whole process of shifting the creature had taken less than a minute.

Later that night while smoking pot he pictured himself taking the creature out for a walk. He imagined what people would say. Krishna then burst out laughing because he knew exactly what they would say.

He no longer fed the creature the way he used to, allowing it to sit on his hand. It had grown much too big for that. Instead he held the door to the puja room slightly ajar — just enough for one of his hands to slip through. Although by now he found the creature harmless he couldn’t bring himself to hold it or touch it even. It sank its teeth deeper and deeper into his skin, drawing more and more blood despite the liberal concoction of chillies, pepper and castor oil that he now slathered before each session. He was running out of excuses at work so he had taken to feeding it only over the weekend.

A thin pool of the pus-coloured liquid had leaked beneath the puja room door which he had kept locked since god knows when. No sooner had he entered the room then the creature, now fluffed like a mattress, lurched forward; this was the first time in weeks Krishna had laid eyes on it. It was more than he could take. Instinctively praying out loud to no god in particular Krishna wheeled round and slammed the door shut. The creature’s tentacle-antennae scratched and banged frantically against the closed door. Usually Krishna tried to ignore these sounds, but on that day he stood on the other side of the door, not putting on any music until the creature stopped trying and the house became quiet again.

Something had to be done. He had started exchanging emails with Seema Doval, the Zoological Survey of India scientist who had dismissed his post as a hoax. Further photos and videos he had shared had intrigued her. She had agreed to drive down with six other colleagues from the ZSI regional centre in Mussourie. He handed Seema the keys to his house and the puja room and told her that he hoped they would take the creature because he no longer wished to take care of it. He’d be waiting for her call at a tea shop about a minute’s walk from his house. After what felt like an hour Seema called. She told him that they had decided to take the creature and that it had been shifted without incident to the van; she asked Krishna if he wanted to see it before they took it to Dehradun. ‘No that’s alright, you can go ahead and take it’. Seema repeated once again that this might be his last chance to see the creature. ‘That’s okay. I have some important work to attend to. You can leave my keys with my neighbour, I’ll collect them later.’

***

Krishna had just finished purchasing Mithril armor for his level 9 Mage in Myths and Shadows when he spotted something out of the corner of his eye: flapping tendrils of blue-green tentacle-antennae. He paused the game and leapt up. He wasn’t imagining it. It was only about as big as a ping-pong ball now. Its tentacle-antennae were scratching the window, presumably waiting to be let in.

Krishna called up Seema. She picked up after the first ring. ‘Thank God it’s with you! We thought of checking with you but the idea seemed so ridiculous considering we had it locked in a lab so far away.’

Seema told him that a van full of zoologists would leave immediately from Mussourie, though it was the middle of the night. ‘This time I’ll make sure it’s monitored 24/7.’ After a split second pause she added, ‘Nobody has seen anything like this. This could be the single most important discovery of the decade.’

Krishna opened the window and let the creature in.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Okay. I’m sorry I sent you there. I thought they would know what to do with you.’ Even though he had no oven mitts on he let it lie on his hand. Gently he stroked it up and down, up and down along its body like it was a dog or a cat. The creature unfurled a few of its tentacle-antennae and tightened its grip on Krishna’s arm but did not extend its snout. It kept its mouth tightly closed. Krishna tried to coax it into drinking his blood, reassuring it in whatever way he could think of that it had his permission but the creature wouldn’t. It merely lay on his palm and allowed itself to be petted. He could see and feel the pus-coloured slime running down the length of his hand. The tentacle-antennae probed but Krishna continued to hold it.

He started walking towards the jangal, where he had first found the creature. He found a small cluster of deodar trees and stopped. He flicked open a pocket knife and nicked his wrist, allowing the blood to flow. But the creature still didn’t drink. Krishna again dug with the pocket knife into his flesh, cutting a deeper wound, allowing more blood to flow. This time the creature opened its snout and drank hungrily. It opened its mouth and bit into the wound Krishna had slashed into his hand, widening it further. It stayed like that for a long time, suckling hungrily.

Seema and the scientists would be arriving soon. Krishna tried to jerk himself free but the creature held fast. He flicked open his pocket knife and tried to pry himself away but the creature only strengthened its hold with more tentacle-antennae. Finally Krishna pulled out his lighter and brought it within singeing distance of the creature. He turned up the flame to make sure it felt the heat. The creature relented.

By the time Krishna got back, Seema and her colleagues were waiting for him. They were disappointed and angry that the creature had escaped but they couldn’t blame him. He promised to let them know if it ever came back.

Krishna cleaned out the puja room with all its accumulated slime and junk and put his parent’s things back where they belonged. He purchased new shirts, the punctures and cuts in his arms healed and Hakeem Saab once again gave him the all clear (and this time he didn’t ask him to stop smoking). Ismail Qureshi no longer teased him and asked to see his slasher film and Seema stopped emailing him every other week.

But sometimes on windy nights Krishna thinks he hears a faint noise like twigs breaking  underfoot, or at work he sometimes faintly hears something like a zipper being pulled. Flagged. Delete.Teenagers laughing and jumping into a swimming pool; a smiling nurse about to administer an injection; a teacher smiling while writing on the blackboard; a woman laughing while talking on her phone. Delete. Krishna never looks up.

Glossary

1. Maggi – a popular brand of instant noodles
2. Saab – a term of respect. Roughly translates to sir.
3. Jangal – forest
4. Beta – a term of endearment. Literally translates to son.
5. Chacha – Literally means your father’s brother but often also used for people around your father’s age.
6. Allah hu Akbar!  Ashadhu an la ilaha iIla Allah! Hayya ala s-salah! – God is great! I bear witness that there is no god except the One God! Hurry to the prayer!
7. Bhai – Literally means brother. But it is a term used to address most anyone.
8. Puja room – the place in Hindu households where idols of deities are kept and worshipped.

Harshvardhan Siddharthan, or Harsh, was born and raised in New Delhi and is currently interested in pursuing socio-cultural anthropology. He has previously worked as a journalist and his articles have appeared in The Hindu, The Indian Express and The Andaman Chronicle. Harsh always welcomes feedback, assignments and criticism. He can be reached at s.harshvardhan@gmail.com

This piece is part of Not afraid of the ruins, our series of science fiction and utopian imaginings.

To receive our next article by mailing list, subscribe here.