Parents always identify the most exceptional aptitudes in their own children. Perhaps then I can be forgiven for what I have to say next. My little creature began to manifest remarkable talents and cleverness beyond those of other pets, and it would perform unbidden for my entertainment. I say it was remarkable. Rather trifles, I suppose, though to my eyes they were quite charming. It began with music. As I played a favorite musical recording in the evenings it would twitch its little tail or bounce a foot in rhythm – a proclivity unheard of in all the animal kingdom.

How I remember with fondness those months of our amiable companionship. It exchanged its previous unpleasant odor for a smooth, musky perfume, a smell which filled my study with a scent that would plunge my mind into endless unresolved problems relating to the human heart and its conflict with itself. You can further imagine my astonishment when it began to mimic my words, parroting phrases in that nasal metallic quacking voice it had, like the voice of an automaton. This was truly a unique thing and I rejoiced at the fortune that had brought the creature to my home.

In my heart of hearts, I increasingly suspected that my creation might be of some monetary value, that this project might not have been merely a hobby after all, even though at the time I was growing so fond of it that the thought of it reaching the age and maturity of leaving my nest weighed upon me as a sad prospect.

How things can change in a matter of just a few weeks.

It continued to fall subject to spells of agitation, like an epileptic, and no soothing words or food would help, nor would my caresses or any other medicines or any of the elements that had gone into its chemical composition, save one. If the remedy were not applied soon, it would become intolerable with its annoying cry and worried pacing, tapping its nails on the wood floor and finally soiling the carpet. When I could take it no longer, I removed the vial of salt tears and applied it with the brush as I had done since its infancy. But as you can imagine, it didn’t take long for the bottle to be emptied.

Something of a threshold was crossed the first day it fell into one of its fits after the bottle was empty. And when no other salve was found and the minutes had passed as I tried to restore it to calm, it instead became so wound up that it seemed it would burst. It climbed my pants legs, up to my chest and grabbed me by the lapels, and screamed its grating panic into my face. And I knew what I had to do, and I did it. The creature helped me of course with its manic perturbations setting my nerves on edge. I worked up a supply of my own tears and let them fall on it until it began to calm. Not satisfied with just a drop or two, it required a fair volume to do the trick and I was utterly exhausted afterward. But at least it was returned to its placid, amiable nature within just a few minutes.

Thus did our familial accord change in a single day, from the Creator-Creature model into a sinister reversal. When it fell subject to its fits of mania, it became a dominating nuisance that would not settle until it had driven me to tears of my own agitated rage, fiercely looking into my eyes waiting for the precious liquid to flow, sucking not just a few tears but the full heart of my upturned emotions, until we fell down gasping in the exchange. Each time it dragged me against my will along with it to the edge of the precipice, hung me over the edge and then released me only after the unnerving and embarrassing catharsis.

Fortunately, these episodes occurred not more frequently than once or twice a week.

Nor was that the only disruption the little brute caused.

Perhaps I let slip my remunerative intentions in my sleep. Or did it detect my thoughts in some curl of my mouth as I looked on paternally at its capering during the happy periods. I do not know. For all I know it could have spawned an endowment for telepathic congress with me, its maker, so precocious was the little beast. Whatever the cause, the creature ceased to be the playful toy and began to slink around the house with a new, melancholy aspect.

It seemed to be entering adolescence, and it was scarcely even a year old. The transformation occurred within only a week or two, and soon it rarely showed its face at all. I would only hear galloping thumps across the floor of a distant upstairs room. I would catch a glimpse of its tail disappearing underneath the sofa. I would hear its metallic quacking, murmuring its complaint to itself, and would be unable to determine from which direction it came. It ceased giving off any odor whatsoever, and I concluded it had reached the equivalent of its young adulthood. Any facet of its appearance that previously would have struck one as charming or playful began to dull and its expression came to resemble the cynical cock-eyed, wry-mouthed configuration of a spent and embittered octogenarian philanderer.

The tear applications ceased. No longer did it need them. It was full grown. When I would happen upon its hiding place as I searched for an old umbrella in a dark coat closet, or descending into the basement late at night with my lantern to check the furnace, or near the attic access, it would cast me a look of anguish, a look of the injured adult-child, and then would spring away into a dark recess.

Some nights as I tried to sleep in the cold, empty house, I would startle awake and find it peering into my face intently, as if to supplicate its maker for the answer to the greatest question. Why was it here? Why was it created? Was it merely to lie pent up in the old mansion, to spend its days in a the dark recesses? Surely there must be more, its eyes said. I read the question in its face, but I could give no answer, for I did not know the answer. Could I have communicated with it, I would have explained my similar inquiry, the first and greatest of questions, as all the race of mankind has inquired since the dawn of sentience. I had created it, but could I tell it why? Could I say that it was just a plaything, a hobby, a way to pass the cold winter nights? And what if the same answer had come back to me in response to my inquiry, in the language of mankind, rather than pregnant, scintillating silence?

That is the way things stand. Even now, throughout the telling of my tale, its claws tap and scrape along the attic floor two stories up, around and around. I will see it occasionally and it will bristle in my gaze, and look at me briefly in the corner of its eye before dashing away. I must find a new home for it before we both go mad.