He sits cross-legged too near the TV in his jungle pajamas with the ROAR! across the heart, but as it\u2019s not the bedtime routine just yet, I tousle his hair and then play it. He\u2019s a sweet boy, with so much of his mother in him. Side-eyeing him while he\u2019s engrossed in the show, I can see that iron will in miniature, the light in his eyes of pursued desire. But he\u2019s still only young. His ambitions at the moment are with lions. Lately he\u2019s been holding his plushy so tightly, so often, its stuffing has been flattened in his fist. He cuddles it\u2014Mr. Lion, unsurprisingly\u2014and I sit on the sofa behind him. He won\u2019t sit with me, but I can\u2019t leave and do something else as he\u2019ll pause it and ask for me back. I\u2019ll always accede but it\u2019s frustrating. I sigh discreetly, steaming the bones of his spine. He\u2019s a good kid but he\u2019s at that age he wants to repeat things and it\u2019s easier to go along with it than push back or set boundaries that are really more his mother\u2019s to explain as we\u2019d agreed it\u2019s better I\u2019d be a peaceful presence.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s right, and she\u2019s always remarking on how well we get along and I know it, and really, I love it, but he\u2019ll grow up to work with computers, I\u2019m certain, and I\u2019d like him to ride his bike a bit more or bulk out some day but we\u2019ve years for that to happen and until then, surely I can tolerate the boredom?<\/p>\n
\u201cBut there\u2019s more than one way to fight!\u201d blares the narrator, as the screen cuts to two lions whomping with bloodied paws. It\u2019s his favourite part, the fight for the pride. \u201cThe winning male gets every breeding female, every infant cub.\u201d He smiles at a close-up of a pair of stained fangs bared, of a golden ragged mane like a crayoned sun. \u201cThe loser retreats, to try another day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRewind\u201d he says, and points to the remote, \u201cI want to watch it again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every day he does this. I eat my annoyance before I speak. \u201cI\u2019ve seen it already,\u201d I tell him, as casually as I can, \u201cso can\u2019t we keep going?\u201d On screen, the camera glides languidly across the usual savanna.<\/p>\n
Inevitably, with subtle petulance: \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I don\u2019t want to,\u201d I say, but in an offhand, playful way, waggling the remote out of reach. It\u2019s a risky strategy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy not?\u201d he asks, and I\u2019m thinking about whether his mother\u2019s heard\u2014did it sound like a rebuke?\u2014and miss my opportunity to lie.<\/p>\n
On screen, the victor, bruised in his triumph, claims his prize. \u201cI have my pride,\u201d I say, pointing at the TV and roaring. It\u2019s a stupid pun\u2014I stamp on the truth in it\u2014and though I think he won\u2019t get it, he laughs and tells me I\u2019m silly. He\u2019s a sharp kid.<\/p>\n
We watch a bit more until he starts to yawn. I bustle him to his mother; she\u2019ll settle him better in bed. The show\u2019s still playing when I come downstairs, and the narrator\u2019s explaining that when a lion takes over a pride, a biological imperative applies. Steps are taken to ensure his lionesses are receptive. I\u2019ve been obliged to sit through this enough by now, and I know, not that I\u2019ll ever tell his mother, that ensure is just a neutered coerce.<\/p>\n
The narrator is inexplicably upbeat. \u201cThere\u2019s a way to make a lioness enter oestrus\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Upstairs, Ethan will be fidgeting under his duvet with a ROAR! across his heart, playing out his dreams of fighting. That\u2019s my guess. In truth, I don\u2019t know him well enough yet.<\/p>\n
On screen, that ragged mane enters the frame again. The focus shifts to our champion\u2019s mouth, to his oil-black gums and grungy yellow fangs. It lingers at last on his rugged foot-long tongue, red-pink as sockeye salmon or a newborn. The soundtrack goes quiet. The narrator waits. A sandy looking cub is plucked by the nape of the neck. The lionesses expect it, like a ritual. It\u2019s as delicate a procedure as snipping a flower stalk.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll have to sit through this all again tomorrow. What I don\u2019t tell the boy is how enamoured I\u2019ve grown of watching lions too. Their rival lives are vibrant on the inside of my eyes. I can\u2019t help but imagine their approach to it now, and how after the fighting, there\u2019s only one family.<\/p>\n
And sometimes I wonder, although I\u2019ll never tell his mother, if that\u2019s a lot fucking easier for everyone.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Side-eyeing him while he\u2019s engrossed in the show, I can see that iron will in miniature, the light in his eyes of pursued desire. But he\u2019s still only young. His ambitions at the moment are with lions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":21372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","writer-stephen-j-bush"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20886"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21373,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20886\/revisions\/21373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}