The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, JulyAugust 2022 by The Magazine of Fantasy && Science Fiction

Author:The Magazine of Fantasy && Science Fiction
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction, Fantasy fiction, Short fiction, Magazine
Publisher: Spilogale, Inc.
Published: 2022-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

Rajeev Prasad is a kidney specialist and father of three wonderful kids. One night a couple years ago, his four-year-old son was sleeping horizontally between him and his wife, as he often did, and the sleeping arrangement morphed into a dream of a boy growing from his body—the inspiration for this story. This is his second appearance in F&SF. He can be found at www.rajeevsworlds.com.

The Wild Son

By Rajeev Prasad

Starved and emaciated, kneeling in the shallow inlet of the Lake, I prayed for a son.

The water rippled from the Lake’s center, and the sound of a tiny cry emerged from the dark watery depths. Had the Goddess finally heard me?

The pain struck above my left temple, and I toppled over, clutching my head in the cold marsh. The spirit climbed from the Lake’s bottomless waters, deeper still from the cycle of souls, to the surface, into me.

When I woke hours later, the Lake’s frigid water lapping up against my face, I was a father.

I caressed the fresh bud on my temple, warm and doughy. Within it, I could feel his faint heartbeat. A head-child was rare, the hardest to carry and raise. Of course, I’d wanted a hip-child or belly-child, but the Lake had granted me a head-child.

The far banks carried the Lake’s whisper. The child is not yours to keep. One day he will return to me.

I raised my clenched fist. After three moons of prayer and penance, I’d earned the child. A constellation of planets, pinpoint jewels of blue, purple, and red shone in the early dawn—all extremely auspicious for the conception of my son.

For the first three days after my return, I rested. My wife, Savitri, made goat curry flavored with cumin and cinnamon, a layer of fat glistening over the surface of the pot. She massaged my neck each night, her soft sari falling against my chafed skin, her black hair blanketing me in the scent of jasmine. We named him Varun.

The fourth morning, I was up frying dosa. My two girls, Spandana and Lakshmi, ages six and eight, touched the warm, thick-skinned bud on my left temple. “Papa, we can hear his heart beating.” They giggled.

Freshly braided hair, dressed in white uniforms with blue ribbons on their lapels, their knapsacks filled with books, they were the pride of the neighborhood. Both girls had grown from Savitri’s hip. Hip-children were never colicky. They ate like jackals. Their cheeks were full and dimpled after three months.

Savitri drank her customary glass of warm water before nibbling at her breakfast. Dressed in a crisp wool salwar and gray shawl, with her brown hair pulled into a bun, and a sharpened pencil behind her ear, her narrow face was alert, her eyes lively and full of energy. I caressed her back and kissed her caramel shoulder.

I was a lowly butcher by birth, and she was from Letters.

Our village of Nyasi was hidden in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains. The clouds often take our Goddess’s form, breasts heavy with moisture, white snow that falls like mother’s milk and melts into fast rivers that fill the Lake.

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