{"id":96,"date":"2022-02-25T18:13:03","date_gmt":"2022-02-25T18:13:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/?page_id=96"},"modified":"2022-09-06T08:46:46","modified_gmt":"2022-09-06T13:46:46","slug":"now","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/","title":{"rendered":"Now"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__list has-dates has-author wp-block-latest-posts\"><li><a class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-title\" href=\"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/?p=3453\">Ouroborobaby by Se\u00e1n Padraic Birnie<\/a><div class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-author\">by Se\u00e1n Padraic Birnie<\/div><time datetime=\"2026-08-04T10:06:03-04:00\" class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-date\">August 4, 2026<\/time><div class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-full-content\"><!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>The baby is chewing her fingers. She\u2019ll put anything (a phone, a tube of barrier cream, your house keys, an empty blister pack of Methlyphenidate XR, 40mg) into her mouth if you let her. She\u2019s at that stage. It reminds me of something hideous I saw on Instagram at 2 am a few nights ago, some confected nightmare that struck me as obviously AI-generated pablum, and as infinitely, hypnotically nasty in its emptiness. In my sleeplessness, I\u2019ve found myself recalling that clip repeatedly.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Now the baby\u2019s drooling all over her hand. She drools a lot these days. She\u2019s rubbing her eyes, so she must be tired. She\u2019s staring at nothing in particular.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>But then a new wave of energy issues from some engine inside her. She\u2019s smacking the play mat with her fists. She\u2019s kicking her feet. The energy intensifies. Without teeth she bites her fingers. Then she wedges her whole fist into her mouth.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Now, that hand free, she\u2019s reaching for her feet. One of her socks, pale lilac, second- or third-hand, has fallen from her right foot, because she\u2019s always kicking her feet about. She pulls that foot to her face and studies it. Then she puts it in her mouth. I laugh. I first noticed her do this yesterday: the way she tries to gnaw her feet.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Laughing, I get up off the sofa and leave her momentarily to it. This will prove a mistake.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>I go into the kitchen and put the kettle on. I skim Reddit on my phone as I wait for the kettle to boil. I follow a handful of parenting forums. I wouldn\u2019t describe them as useful, exactly, but they can be quite entertaining all the same. I see a made-up word I can\u2019t pronounce with the half dozen brain cells sleeplessness hasn\u2019t yet destroyed, and as I\u2019m failing to process this word, I hear a sound from the living room, from the baby. It\u2019s an odd sound.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>The kettle clicks and I pour boiling water into an empty cup. I forgot the tea bag. I toss one in and leave it to brew. I\u2019m pretty sure that\u2019s the wrong way round.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>As I step back into the living room, my life stops. I stop, too. I can\u2019t believe what I\u2019m seeing because it is entirely impossible and therefore unbelievable. You wouldn\u2019t believe it, either. I can only stare in horror. But I think I saw something about this online, in what, later, we\u2019ll think of as the early days of this thing.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>My daughter has drawn both of her feet into her mouth. She\u2019s working steadily. Her neck bulging, she looks like a snake eating some medium-sized bird or mammal. She has passed her own ankles.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>I don\u2019t know what to do. What would anyone do when confronted with something categorically impossible? They would freeze, or scream. They might suspect some trick. I\u2019ve frozen. She\u2019s way past her ankles now. In gulp after gulp her knees disappear. Fat thighs vanish into a mouth opened wider than any human mouth ought to go. Then her hips. There\u2019s a smoothness to this process, an atrocious sinuosity.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph {\"style\":{\"typography\":{\"textAlign\":\"center\"}}} -->\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">*<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Something breaks in me. Perhaps it\u2019s broken in you, too. I hear it click the way the kettle clicked. I rush to my daughter\u2019s side. What was I thinking? I wasn\u2019t thinking, of course \u2013 I was watching.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Part of me thinks I shouldn\u2019t touch her, shouldn\u2019t interfere with something I don\u2019t understand, but this is my daughter. She\u2019s working quickly. Her mouth, impossibly, has reached her upper back.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>I pick her up and realise I don\u2019t know how to hold her. I fall back down on the sofa.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>The mouth \u2013 for now of my daughter there is only mouth \u2013 is closing in on the soft back of her head, the warmth of her neck, the uneven blonde hair which curls out in delicate tufts around her ears. The lips of the mouth are creeping over the crown of her head. This isn\u2019t possible; nonetheless, it\u2019s happening. A moment ago I was holding something that still looked like my daughter in my lap.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Impossibilities accumulate: now the mouth is floating above my lap. My daughter\u2019s face has almost completely disappeared. The jaw muscles work ruthlessly. I\u2019m covered in drool. The lips are closing in on the jaw. The back of the lips on the front of the lips. I close my eyes. Somewhere a key turns in a lock. The front door opens, closes.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>I open my eyes to find my wife staring at me in bafflement.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>\u2018What\u2019s wrong?\u2019 she says. \u2018Is something wrong?\u2019<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>__________<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p><em>Se\u00e1n Padraic Birnie is a writer from Brighton. His debut collection, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/undertowpublications.com\/shop\/i-would-haunt-you-if-i-could\">I Would Haunt You If I Could<\/a><em>, was published by<\/em> Undertow Publications<em> in 2021. His work has appeared in places such as<\/em> ergot, Interzone, Remains, <em>and <\/em>C\u014dnfing\u014d, <em>and has been reprinted in<\/em> Best British Short Stories, The Year\u2019s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, <em>and <\/em>The Best Weird Fiction of the Year. <em>He is on Bluesky and Instagram @seanbirnie. For more information, see <a href=\"http:\/\/seanbirnie.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">seanbirnie.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph --><\/div><\/li>\n<\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><\/div>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-full.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-96","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/96","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/96\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":675,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/96\/revisions\/675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}