Virus is a Language: A Somewhat Outlandish Reverie

The creature nestles in its armchair, pulsing faintly. We’re watching a re-run of The X-Files. The creature seems to like it. As do I. Oh, that Gillian Anderson!

I found the creature on the heath. It was a misty morning; I was taking my after-breakfast stroll, the same circuit I took when ol’ Andy had been alive, trotting briskly by my side, looking for a place to stop suddenly, snuffle the ground, and pee. I lacked the heart to either find a new companion or cease my morning walks. I walked along, filling my lungs with vapor as my hands remembered the sensation of Andy’s fuzzy forehead bumping against my dangling palm, followed by his cold black nose.

Suddenly, the phantom nose was replaced by something real – cold, firm, but definitely not a nose. I jerked my hand away but it took a moment before I could muster the gumption to investigate what had brushed against me. It had felt so familiar yet alien, questing and firm and friendly as a nudge can be, but also slightly wobbly, its surface cold but with an inner warmth detectable beneath it, a protuberance as fascinatingly ungainly and vaguely obscene as the word “protuberance” itself.

I looked down, finally, and looking back up at me was the proboscis of a trembling, tartan sack supported by a collection of other protuberances jutting irregularly from its body. It moved forward a bit, allowing me to see that it moved not by “walking” with these strange, ungainly limbs, but rather rolled along from one to the other, its body undulating and revolving as the proboscis that had bumped my hand thrust down into the heather and its “hind” limbs cycled up to probe the air.

Frightened by the flailing, I startled back; it moved forward to pursue me, its limbs cycling quickly around its canvas body like a cross between a stiff-legged jellyfish and the bristling band around the wheels of a tank. I stood stock-still, unsure of what to do but not wanting to provoke it. The creature stood still as well, its plaid canvas body undulating slightly, as if breathing the misty air through its surface like an amphibian.

The foremost proboscis tilted toward me slightly, then swiveled to the side, immediately reminding me of Andy again, the way he’d look at me with his head tipped quizzically to the left as if trying to riddle out my obscure motivations as I shouted at the television or pounded furiously at the computer keyboard or stopped shaving partway through, dispirited by the swarm of little bleeding cuts covering my cheek and chin, saying, “Just fuck it, then,” to the mirror then turning to say it again directly to him, half-bearded and filled with impotent resentment against the physical facts of existence itself and needing an audience. Like a good therapist, though, Andy would never challenge my outbursts; he would just cock his head to one side and let me “own” my feelings. But unlike actual therapists, he made me feel better, which probably stemmed not just from his impeccable listening skills but his acquiescence when I reached out and ruffled the soft fur covering the crown of his little head.

The tilting and the pangs of recognition it brought made the difference. My heart softened, its racing slowed. The bristling bag before me became less disquieting than intriguing, and I smiled at it to show I was no longer afraid. Tentatively, it flailed toward me, bumping against my thigh. I heard a lilting kind of coo, seemingly inside my head. I looked down and saw the creature’s proboscis had split at the end, revealing an opening like a little mouth. The cooing must be coming from there, but the sensation that it was inside my head persisted.

I must have looked perturbed, because the creature’s little mouth had sealed itself again and inside my head, the cooing suddenly stopped. I missed it instantly. I reached down and patted it on the end of its firm but faintly pliable protuberance; I made sure to smile, even though I had yet to locate anything that seemed like an eye. The cooing began again, at first tentatively, then with increased confidence and harmonic complexity. It seemed to unfold like a rose, revealing symphonies. I ached to explore it. I needed to listen, and learn.

“Come with me,” I told it, making sure to also say it very clearly inside my head; I had yet to locate ears upon it either. I turned and headed for home, looking back every once in a while to see if it was following me. It always was, trundling its ungainly and endearing way through the heath, but really, I needn’t have checked – the cooing symphony continued to spread across my brain like a sunset staining an evening sky all the way back home.

And so I came to live with a creature. I tried to give it food, but it does not appear to eat; the same is true of water. It seems made to only give, not take. It curls at the foot of my bed at night, on the sofa near me when I watch the television and curse; it trundles around the room probing the bookcases in my office as I type furiously at my computer’s keyboard; it nudges me comfortingly when I cut myself shaving and reach the verge of giving up on everything, once and for all.

The creature lives in my house, but more importantly, lives inside my head. It entertains me, tells me jokes, provokes me, shows me images I’d never have imagined, eggs me on toward articulations I’d never be capable of alone. This creature, this strange and shifting bag of pipes, this tartaned pulsing presence with a sonorous symphony within it, has become oddly indispensable, a part of myself that lies outside myself, giving me a new language with which to speak. It is a message and a medium, a connection to a world within the world, one that lies just beneath the surface, just behind the mist. It is affection and creative impulse; it is a nudge in the right direction. The creature inhabits me like a welcome virus, shields me on my journeys like a shoe protects a foot. Its mouths sing the sweetest songs, its protuberances pinwheel as it essays awe-inspiring acrobatics, its words within my head make me smile on the coldest days.

And sometimes all we do is watch reruns of The X-Files, waiting for the water for the tea to boil on the stove. The cooing has a tendency at these times to have a lot to do with tits. Who can blame it?

Oh, that Gillian Anderson!