She pulled her dress out of his tiny hands, and leaned down, smiling at him with her big mother eyes.

"What is it now? Oh Tim, you're so cute..." she pinched his cheeks and turned back to the stove, humming. He waddled dejectedly back to the corner by the fridge and sat down.

The door to the living room gaped wide, beckoning to him like a big hungry mouth. He could see his father, dressed in coveralls, painting the room bright white, his silouhette disappearing into the luminous mist.

He had noticed it earlier, just before the first coat of paint had been applied. It was like a dazzling sunny day, a whitish mist that seemed to glisten from the wall like steam with an inner light. He had hung on mothers skirt all morning, watching as it seemed to pulsate and grow. Voices joined it at almost regular intervals, expanding its borders. His father paid no attention to it at all, listening to classical music and singing the operatic parts out loud. Now it had advanced almost to the door of the living room.

"Honey, do you feel like roast or ham tonight?" mother called out. The music dimmed, and his father appeared from out of the white cloud, rubbing his hands.

"I think the roast," he said, moving over to wash his hands in the sink.

"Oh honey, not over the food,"

"Well what do you want me to do, track paint all over the floor?" he fumed. Seeing Tim in the corner, he leaned down, smelling of paint.

"How's Timmy doing, hah? hah hah?" he poked at Tim's stomach, grinning.

"Don't torment him, Harry..."

"He likes it! Dontcha, Tim? Huh, dontcha?" Tim started crying. He couldn't understand why his father was so happy. The white was pushing into the kitchen, and he could smell a horrible damp odor which crept ahead of it like a jungle miasma.

"Now look, you've made him cry," mother stood behind father, her hands on her hips. She gave him a mean look and bent down, lifting Tim up buoyantly to her shoulder.

"There there now, its ok.." she patted him, calming his tears.

"The way you spoil that kid, Helen, I swear he's going to need therapy." "Harry, don't talk like that in front of him..." she said over her shoulder as she set Tim down in the corner.

Tim stared at the throbbing mass of shimmering that was creeping slowly across the floor.

"Why why, why why why," he cried, standing unsteadily, moving away, backing up against the wall. "Why why why..." Why couldn't they understand him? Couldn't they see the approaching cloud? Tim felt tremors from it, tremors of fear.

Mother pushed the roast into the oven, setting the dials. Father collapsed with a sigh at the table, leaning back and cracking open a beer.

"It looks like Tom's going to buy that house next door after all," he said, taking a long cool sip, licking his lips of the foam.

"Why, that's wonderful. Everybody seems to be moving out here."

"It'll be strange, all right. I haven't seen Tom since..." he paused, trying to remember.

"Don't they have a daughter?" Mother said.

"Marjorie, yeah, two years older than Tim. But he's not sure... its going to be tight. If the escrow closes... he's calling me tomorrow."

Tim edged along the wall, watching the white mist. His tiny hand felt the edge of the door to the T.V. room, holding to it for support. The white continued to advance. It walked with the legs of a thousand people, had the heads and the mouths of millions, a singular crowd driven by sunlight. He could feel the hunger emanating from it like radiation, and he knew it needed to eat.

Letting go of his secure hold, he waddled as fast as he could, his speed propelling him on his stubby legs towards father. He reached him, grasping his big leg with an iron grip.

"Well, what's up with Tim? What is it?"

Tim pulled and pulled as hard as he could, trying to drag his father out of his chair, away from the tendrils of white that were already creeping up over the edge of the table.

"Why, why, why..." he cried, tugging, but father wouldn't budge.

"He's been doing that all day," mother said, walking to the fridge.

"Tim, go away. Daddies tired. Let him relax," father said, untwining his fingers from the pantleg and shooing him away.

Tim turned to see his mother vanish into the whiteness of the fridge, the hinged door seemingly reaching out and consuming her, drawing her into the color of oblivion.

She gasped out in surprise, the fog swallowing her breath before it even left her body. The Glistening grew, moving faster, pulsating bright white light as it advanced. A tiny echo of despair and pain escaped from the cloud like a small burp.

"Wha.. Helen?" father said, turning in wonder at the noise behind him but it was too late. The beer-can flew off the table, oozing a venomous alcoholic foam that quickly disappeared into the mist.

Tim's eyes grew terrified, stepping away from the table. Father tried to stumble back as licks of white haze leapt out to engulf him, wrapping spindles of emptiness around him, thrusting itself deep into his throat, stifling his cries, but could not escape. The cloud attached itself to him like sticky cotton, filling his mouth and eyes, encompassing his body.

Tim continued to move back, herded by the encroaching fog which slowly consumed his father, swallowing up the screams which escaped his lips. He cast frightened looks about him, backing slowly away, seeking escape, trapped in a lonely world with the light, by the light.

A contorted look of anguish spread across his fathers features, and then he too was gone. Tim shook uncontrollably, his eyes scanning the blankness, until he saw the door to the T.V. room. His instincts lead him backwards, through the doorway, one step ahead of the creeping fluidity which Tim could not completely fathom.

"Why.. Whyt.. Whyte.." he named it, and its front pushed up against him. His mouth opened to yell but only a whimper came out. Pressure bulged against him, squeezing the breath out of him, hounding his body as if it had no weight. It pushed hard and unrelenting, squashing him up against something cold and hard. He felt its pain sharp in his back.

Looking behind him, his mouth open, gasping, he could just make out the dark gray television screen. He struggled hopelessly, spreading against it, flattened onto its smooth glass by the white which had expanded from room to room, which he had seen and tried to stop, to warn mommy and daddy.... It had consumed his parents, and now he knew it would get him.

A soft sound squeezed out of Tim's chest as he struggled against the growing pressure, as it became too much to feel. His body slackened, his muscles crushed, there was nothing more he could do. The Glistening pulsed white with a sudden surge and a pop, and small Timmy Trubeth disappeared into the staring blackness of the t.v screen.

Eventually that too faded out into video blur, the static of a million nations, a million homes, a million minds... and the white spread.