Faces to the dirt

Tom Cruise and his wife, Katie Holmes, lie on their bellies, propped on their elbows, with high powered binocular night goggles. Tom gets them from the future. They watch the children crouch and dig, then hop two feet to one side, and crouch and dig again. The landscape is barren, a ranch-style house in the distance, dust fogging the air. The children dig, and then the one wearing glasses begins to fuss. A fist shoots out of the white blanket in a nearby pram, wielding a cat-o-nine-tails, which it flings in all directions, scattering welts on the children’s bare faces, shoulders, and arms. They hop more quickly, dig with more purpose. Oddly, they seem content in their work.

“They have a purpose,” Tom says. “A purpose.”

Katie nods and takes notes. “Baby driver,” she writes, “Cat-o-nine-tails. Purpose.” The mother and father are nowhere to be seen. Tom wants to spit into a petri dish and make a macaque, a bonobo monkey, and a lizard. Babies are for lunatics; he sees that now. He wants to mate the bonobo monkey with Katie and see what happens. When he says this to Katie, she shrugs. Suri is so creepy that a monkey baby would be preferable.

Even now, she lies beside them, in her princess dress and high-heeled shoes. Her hair is getting longer. She longs to snap that whip; her hand trembles. Katie fights an urge to slap her, to bite her on the nose until she bleeds.

“Now, now,” Tom says, and Suri stands up. She begins to walk toward the other children, her hand in a strange little salute. The whip stills, and the children cower on the ground. Suri picks up the baby in the pram. She picks up the baby in the pram. Its disgruntled old man face opens up and squalls. She removes the pacifier from her own mouth and places it in his. The other children keep their faces to the dirt.