One Story by Andy Mallory

A God Who Grew

The Two looked until they smiled until they laughed until they loved until they made a home together and knew that they must also make something from their bodies. Something original. Eventually a child arrived, it was pure. Intimacy.

The child began, as most of them, small and weak. Its name has since been forgotten by time and People. We will call it Dog.

Dog’s time was spent crying and defecating. It struggled with most physical tasks. The Two’s time was spent laboring to grow the wealth of People who already had more than they could ever possibly use. And who the Two would never meet. And when the Two were not laboring for the People they were laboring for Dog. Dog who could not hold its own head to look a Stranger in the face. To see the eyes of its Mother and feed from her breast.

Eventually Dog began to grow. It ate constantly but could not feed itself. It cried and defecated nearly as often. This taxed the Two considerably. From the frequency of Dog’s cries they ascertained that it did not require air to live. Instead it required affectionate contact. As it could not feed itself, the task of provision fell upon the Two. Dog’s clumsy, fatty claws reached somnambulantly toward nourishment.

Neither did it require sleep. Where a normal person slumbers, Dog cried some more. The Two’s task of growing something together from their bodies was total. It was part of a home, together. To create something shared.

Dog grew in mass and stature while its body retained a newborn shape. At first this was not unusual because children grow. But at some point Dog’s physical development began to concern the Two. The point occurred where the Two weighed Dog on a scale. Dog who registered at sixty pounds and would be approximately two feet tall if it could stand on two feet. Which, it could not. Dog was then shepherded to the Doctor, who informed the Two that Dog’s progress was unusual but not entirely unprecedented. We’ll monitor Dog, said the Doctor.

Meanwhile Dog’s corporeal condition demanded an increase in its volume of daily nutritional intake. Dog required nearly six or seven times the food of a normal child its age. The Two were beginning to experience fiscal uncertainty as a result of Dog’s grocery bill. And Dog somehow still required neither breath nor slumber for nourishment. Dog who could only just raise its head to look a Stranger in the face. Dog with the sleepwalking fingers.

By the anniversary of its birth Dog was nearly too large to fit inside of its bedroom, its total mass was unknown. The Two quit their jobs in order to work full time, feeding Dog. Their savings began to hemorrhage. They hired Strangers to deliver groceries. They also hired a Consultant to estimate the cost of breaking down and restructuring the walls of their house around Dog’s growth. But in the time it took to finish the cost estimate, Dog had grown some more. Dog who could no longer move much.

Dog became a subject of international intrigue. Journalists requested interviews and photograph opportunities. When the Two declined, the Journalists tried anyways. They snuck around the house. Sometimes in. This agitated the Two and Dog. Flashing lights from cameras caused Dog to cry more than it already did. It nonetheless ate the same. Its infantile corpulence was astonishing to behold.

One day, after Dog had grown so large that the anterior wall of its bedroom needed to be demolished, Dog tried to eat a Journalist. By this time Dog, whose mass was still unknown, whose sitting body measured twenty feet in height, was only capable of moving its arms. Its hands with the sleepwalking fingers. They grabbed the Journalist from the bushes outside of Dog’s former bedroom. They wrapped around him like pythons, disturbed out of slumber. Lifted him toward Dog’s mouth. Dog with worn alabaster headstones for teeth. Dog who ate constantly. Dog whose parents intervened. Dog who did not succeed in eating the Journalist this time.

Before long Dog was too large to be stopped, its growth shook the walls. The Two’s house was declared structurally compromised and evacuated. Dog ate Journalists and Strangers. It could not walk, but its reach was great. It grabbed a news helicopter out of the air mid-flight and devoured the crew inside. It ate People and animals and whatever its somnolent pythons could find. Several world governments joined forces to stop Dog. Whatever that meant. Dog who might be as tall as a skyscraper on two feet. Dog who could not stand like that.

The Militarists wanted to destroy Dog with nuclear weapons, to the discontent of the Scientists who wanted to study it. The Militarists’ position, because they had nuclear weapons, was more persuasive. They attempted to destroy Dog with these weapons. The weapons made Dog cry, but otherwise had no effect on it. Dog who cried anyways. Dog who grew. It grew and grew.

It grew until its head was no longer contained by the world’s atmosphere. But Dog did not require air to live. And so it continued to eat and grow. It ate the Two and most other People. It scooped handfuls from the oceans and devoured countless creatures. Eventually it sustained itself by eating astronomical bodies. It ate the moon. It ate the earth, then other moons and other planets. It ate the sun. It cried and cried, but without an atmosphere these cries could not be heard. Had there been a living person with ears to listen.

Dog’s mass became so great that its gravitational force attracted planets. Then stars, then galaxies. Countless civilizations and life forms from innumerable star systems fed Dog. The black holes at their centers were dwarfed by Dog. Eventually there was nothing left except for Dog. Dog who defied all physical laws as People understood them.

Then the universe died. It was reborn, along with another god.

Andy Mallory is a bartender, musician, and philosophy instructor. He is the author of the chapbooks "Schopenhauer's Dog" (Bottlecap Press, 2024) and "Four Seasons of Ghosts" (Alien Buddha Press, 2023). His fiction has appeared in shoegaze lit mag, Overgrowth Press Magazine, and elsewhere. He lives in Maine with his partner and two parrots.

Instagram + Twitter: @witheringvessel