Story I wrote and submitted to STS:

The Ort materialized on the old wooden stool next to Daisy’s highchair as Sandra gave Daisy her breakfast. It’s saggy bulk made the old thing creak, it was the oldest piece of furniture they had.

Daisy chortled merrily to see the creature, and then she bagan spooning the porridge into her mouth. The Ort burped encouragingly, looked over at Sandra, then returned it’s attention to the feeding human infant.

The toddler and the creature giggled together, then Daisy took up banging the highchair table with her spoon and the Ort dripped residue onto the linoleum.

Sandra and Alan had become aware their child was communicating with an invisible entity as soon as she started talking. At first they believed it to be a passing phase, but when the Ort started assuming an actual physical form it began having a serious effect on their marriage.

Alan was convinced he was losing his mind, Sandra tried reassurring him, no, it was real, the thing was real and it was happening to them. Soon, Alan was demanding they call the authorities to have it “removed”, but predictably the Ort failed to appear at mealtimes if any third party was present, and the more calls they made, the more Sandra felt that they were risking having their only child taken away from them. So she insisted they stop the calls.

It was soon after this Alan left them. He maintained he had fallen in love with the receptionist at his new work and had decided to move on. Sandra wasn’t even sure they had a receptionist at his new work. She found the idea amusing.

It made life simpler not having him around anyhow. The Ort was much less agitated with Alan gone, and, consequently, the stink it gave off mellowed.

Sandra finished mixing Daisy’s drink, looking across she caught the Ort’s blank stare, it nodded at her encouragingly. She placed the drink in front of Daisy, the Ort farted it’s approval and Sandra turned to the sink.