My Children are Eating Rocks: What Do They Know That I Don’t? by William Russel Faber
I happened upon it in what felt like a dream. I visited the community pool to water the gardenias, as part of my community service to the community, and I found my three beautiful boys, Linda, Tommy, and Linda, giving all sorts of small smooth rocks a big chomp. It left me heartbroken. This was a sign of forbidden knowledge, a sign that all my efforts had failed. I raced back home and Binged my favorite website, children-and-their-little-morsels dot com, which redirected me to children-and-their-little-morsels.com almost immediately. I spent the whole day and the entire night searching through the post history of Mr. Hubert, the most wonderful parental blogger, who, in the past, had served as my guiding light in times of darkness, had given me important information like, “What to do when your child is choking” and “Memorizing Cat In The Hat and reciting it to your kids each night to convince them that you know how to read.” Hubert had nothing to offer me now, only tips for cooking quinoa. At dawn, without sleep, I woke my children for school, brought them downstairs, and fed them off-brand Frosted Mini Wheats, just as Hubert recommends. I watched their teeth with maximum ocular precision. Not a scratch nor a chip on any of them. I knew then that my children must
know something about rocks that I do not, a fact that shook me to my core as I love all rocks and rock trivia so, so much. I took it upon myself to discover what I did not know. I ferried my children to the schoolyard, but, as I began to pull away, I realized that I had nowhere to turn. I had visited all the local rock museums many, many times and spoken to all the geologists, geographers, and geometrists when we first moved into this county. There was nothing I did not know. I parked in the school’s parking lot and waited for recess. When I heard the throng of children pushing their way outside, I got out of my car and climbed over the fence into the schoolyard. From behind a large pebble, I watched my children. At first, they played ‘Ruin the Life of Carl’ quite well with all the other kids, and Carl ran inside crying in short order. Once that finished, all the children went to the edge of the yard, began picking up rocks of all shapes, sizes, and types, and began to gnaw at them. I watched aghast. One child, who goes by MaximumBlaster, chipped a tooth and began to wail. My son Linda came to him, shushed him, made calming gestures. The boy did not quiet. Linda soothed him more urgently now, sending furtive glances toward the door where a teacher may appear at any moment.
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Still the boy did not quiet. Linda gestured toward Tommy and Linda, and they appeared on either side of him. They nodded at one another. Linda put his hand up to the right side of Tommy’s mouth, and Linda put his hand up to the right side of Tommy’s mouth. They pulled on his cheeks. It stretched. It stretched. It stretched. And Tommy swallowed MaximumBlaster whole. The others did not look up from their lunch of stones. I clambered back over the fence, afraid of my children. I had my answers now. My sweet boys are vessels of the knowledge of their mother, my wife, a rock demon. I wanted to protect them from this fate, that was why I had read them The Cat in the Hat again and again, hoping to drown out the demonic wails of my better half. Leaning against the fence, I consoled myself. I had done everything I could to prevent this, besides not marrying a non-human entity that eats gravel and sediment for energy. I got up from my spot and ran to my car, turning on to the highway toward home. I hoped in vain that they would not be there when I returned to pick them up.