William Wright

01.05.98

Cats have it easy. Who'd ever have thought to design them to lick their own asses? Crusty shit licked off, and seemingly without negative side effects. Me? Damn sight more complicated, actually. But if you consider the big picture, the indignity I suffer on a rhinestone leash is minimal when compared to the benefits I reap. Nope, I wouldn't have it any other way now that I've got the whole world willing to kiss my little white furry butt ... well, if not the whole world, then at least a caste of blue-haired widows … elderly matrons with too much money and a grandmother's need to nurture in the winter of their lives. Some do geraniums. Others, daycare. Thankfully a whole lot of them choose to pamper, dote and worship at the alter of their lap dog.

The joke is that I'm not really one of those yapping, misbred mutts. I might look like a groomed, puffed and powdered rat, but that's the beauty of the whole design. I'm still me, under the hairy curls and unsightly bald patches. Like a suit and a tie, my disguise grants me both respect and whatever my alien heart desires from these brittle dames. It's like the diamond tiaras they seem to like, perched on a sculpted cloud of big hair, winking and flashing with opulent arrogance; I too ride the crest of wealth and status. As an icon of society's upper echelon, a chattel, a vice, an eccentricity, I have attained prospect and refuge within their fragile society. That's right. These old bags and I are symbiotic parasites, irrevocably intertwined until death do us part. And I'm not even a dog!

Imagine the scandal if they discovered that the lowest of the low, an untouchable, hobnobbed freely amongst the movers and the shakers! A free-born with unscreened chromosomes … the product of countless generations wearing the iron collar of a worthless pedigree that they will never let you forget ... jee'asp, a synonym for shame … jee'asp, a name spat if at all spoken, a curse binding us to slavery under the shadow of extinction. Imagine a tiara-crowned, big-bosomed matron sweeping me up off priceless Persian rugs and popping Belgian truffles into my eager mouth! Sips of vintage wines! My ears privy to political intrigue and household personnel readily taking a warm wet cloth to my behind after I dump whenever the fancy strikes me! May the Tenfold and all their tributaries burn with outrage!

Too bad I wont ever get to see their faces.

You see, my countrymen dumped me here on Earth. 'A penal colony with an honorable tradition' they advertised to quiescent voters at my sentencing. Through a twist of fate, the middling levels of our world's society chose to make my trial a precedent. Through the selfish ambitions of some castes -- no doubt climbers seeking a toehold -- the ancient laws that bound us all to duty and service were challenged. The justices' verdict was unanimous, though holy men of the fourth tier quibbled over what amounted to a pardon. Banishment was suddenly a new option, and when weighed against outright execution, the attraction of space flight and colonization didn't look too bad … so read the media reports.

The funny thing was that it was a jee'asp that came to sit before them at all. As a political tool wielded by staunch conservatives, from one level to the next my case spiraled up an impossible ladder of courts and hearings, tribunals and evaluations. Of course I never saw the money they said had made it all possible. Neither did I ever leave my cell. They couldn't condemn me to the humiliation of a lower caste; as a jee'asp I had no caste. Finally those ambitious little men saw to it that extermination was waved; some lucky seventh tier bastards ensured that their children married into sixth. The punishment was ultra-lenient … outrageous, actually, considering my crimes. They said that a tremour had passed through the unseen peaks of our society, forever distant and clouded in obscurity, which amounted to an unprecedented slap in the face. Indignities had been suffered. Families had been insulted. Exile it was to be.

Of course, I had no idea what to expect. The men onboard that foil-skinned ship left me marooned on this crowded planet. I had to fit in quickly; literally, if I was to survive I needed to adapt. So which form looked the most promising? Beasts in the wild on the verge of extinction? The competitive and uncompromising world of insects? The majestic and meek world of plants? The so-called masters running after their machines like automatons? I knew enough of the trappings of power to know that it corrupted and misaligned one's life, and that any high degree of responsibility in society ensured a swift, though perhaps memorable, end. Rage. Confusion. Depression. Suicide. I saw all their masks in those first few days of lurking. And who was riding the back of the hapless whale, laughing, kicking up his heels in shameless glee? Well, the rest is history. Fifteen years and I'm still a dog.

A white poodle is irresistible to the rich women of this metropolis, who love the challenge to keep me clean, to teach me tricks, to fawn, to spoil, to grovel helplessly before my every whim. Out! In! Food! Shit! I never dreamed life could be so good ... for a prison so far from home, that is.

Mrs. Dobias, my current owner, is a Carrier. She enjoys carrying me where ever she goes. At first it was annoying, but the advantage of having her stoop and bend, shop and walk all day long with me tucked neatly under her arm can't be balked. Even after complaining of bad joints, she practically gets down on her knees to place me on the ground. And naturally, I've got to use the hydrants at the most inconvenient moments. Though she is awfully considerate, I don't expect she'll last long at the pace I maintain. Sooner or later, Mrs. Dobias will become another notch in my collar on my way to more fertile grounds … though I will regret having to move away from her fine house on the park: thick carpets, good heating, a seventh story view and a doorman who holds the door open for me. From the plump and perfumed bosom of my Carrier I can see the signs of wear and tear. Life is short, especially for the elderly. So before one of the old darlings putters out, I invest a lot of energy insuring that her friends or family fight over possession. Before Mrs. Dobias, there was Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Cartwright-Lloydd, Mr. Berk ('Puffin' to his friends), Miss Rue, Miss van Dijk, Miss Jensen (the Miss Years) and my first and greatest mistress, Mrs. Alan. Who will be next? I've narrowed the favorites down to three, but right now, from my window, I have a fine view of the trees and grass below. Dame Dobias feeds me well enough. Restaurants and theaters, museums and salons, tucked under her arm I lead quite the cosmopolitan lifestyle. To be honest, this decadent display actually bores me, but the insight into the workings of this world, its primary species and its facile hierarchies, remains entertaining.

When Mrs. Alan first found me down in that same park, I was not a pretty sight; metamorphosis is never a pretty sight. The Ban 'Jenn flight crew – second and third level cretins -- on board that ship fitted me out with only one dose of the Breed. A recreational drug on other worlds, Breed would only get me one suit on Earth. I'm not a chemist, so whatever form I chose was for life. A chilling prospect, to be sure. Depressed for many years after, I still wonder if I made the right choice. Sure, I might have regrets, but circumstances were different upon arrival. Months of space flight locked in solitary confinement ... then boom! here I am, discovering in one clap that my own body couldn't last long in this atmosphere. I had to jump quickly and it's not like I read travel brochures during the flight to better inform my decision. In fact, the trip was hell. Each second harbored the threat of death. Had not one of the justices and several media services accompanied us I would never have lived past the launch. Locked up in suspension, the Ban 'Jenn did their best to keep me quiet until they dumped me out in the wilds of what I would only later discover to be a park in a city on the planet Earth. Naked, shivering, forced to breath the toxins hanging in the air, I clutched that single vial of the Breed tightly, knowing that I had only a few hours to find a safe roost. One vial … cursing the semi-literate peons of the Tenfold's lowest tiers for their petty fears and opportunistic greed, I hung in the boughs of the trees licking the pure gases from the leaves, waiting on destiny, waiting on Mrs. Alan.

Destiny did not hold me in suspense for too long. From that verdant vantage point I observed my new world, appraising my situation and looking for the form that would serve me best. From above I watched Mrs. Alan walking with her friends up the path. They sat beneath my tree. I floated closer. Already I could feel dizzy and faint. Accompanying this state of rapid decline was a loss of dexterity -- apparently, one of my tentacles disturbed a nest of squirrels. Shocking them, one darted out of its hole and tore down the tree. It was then that Mrs. Alan's dog broke free, springing from her lap to chase after that startled squirrel. Arresting cries were futile as her dog disappeared into the dense bushes at the base of the hillock. Already curious, I wove unseen through the branches and leaves to the tree in which the rodent sought refuge. At the base barked a little white dog. Ferocious. Clipped. Bestial. A bow tie between the ears. A hunter. Banded with an encrusted collar. Instead of coming after the dog, the other ladies comforted Mrs. Alan, as she herself kept crying out what must have been her pet's name.

Pumpkin.

Pumpkin never knew what hit him. With ears, nose, mouth, anus and penis stoppered, I hauled him up into the leafy crown. Twice my size and four times my weight, I was pleased with myself even if the effort nearly killed me. My normally scintillating skin was already turning yellow in this toxic air; the rhythmic camouflage had ceased to function hours ago. With all limbs busy preparing the dog for my investiture, I watched through stinging eyes as the five ladies walked slowly down to the bushes. They seemed terrified, not just of the bushes, but of the wilderness as a whole. I slipped the white pet the Breed and siphoned off all the fluids I would not be needing. The women stopped before the ring of vegetation and timidly called out for 'Pumpkin'. The little dog shivered and whined and tried to jump as the Breed relaxed the vascular system to facilitate my occupation. Weary of those little, sharp teeth, I entered from the soft backside. Once inside, I allowed the Breed to stimulate filar growth, waited for the mass of fibrils to tap its brain and infect its neural system and so finally took control of the organism called Pumpkin.

And I almost destroyed my one and only host by doing this in the safety of the high boughs. If I had watched a little longer, I might have guessed that lap dogs didn't climb trees. The fall left me with fractured legs and a collapsed lung. Good start. It was bad enough having to waste so much energy breathing with lungs, and now this inconvenience. The poodle had been so ferocious; when the squirrel decided to come back down the tree to have a look, it hissed and spat and waltzed around and around the corky trunk. I thought it might feed on carrion. Helpless now that I had fused with the dog, I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing, trying all the while to black out the sound of the squirrel's spicy laughter.

Sometime later that night, after hearing many terrifying noises with new ears and smelling so many sinister things with my new nose, lights danced through the bushes. Saved! It seemed Mrs. Alan sent the doorman out to find me. Gently, he carried me back. A doctor visited the elder woman in her apartment, setting my legs and the rib that had almost punctured a lung. My mistress bathed me with a warm cloth and cried and cried. That grand old woman was as pleased as punch to nuzzle her nose against my own. Her Pumpkin was home again.

That ridiculous blue-haired society dame was good to me, up until the day she died. Two years of comfort and then one afternoon she died while I was busy watching the news. I had seen organisms die on television, but this first-hand experience was fascinating. Her lips blubbered whispered nonsense as her head fell against her chest. The air just kept coming from her mouth and her bowels loosed. Foul. A sack of organic shit left behind as the air above her rippled like a mirage above hot summer pavement. Then all was still. Her soul was gone. I was alone. Only the next day, when she had been removed and her family alerted, did the old spinster, Miss Jensen, come to take me away.

She was a wild one. Miss Party. I loved to drink champagne and became quite a drunk in those short years. Her gatherings were extraordinary. At the height of hysterical outrage I strutted out onto a white silk carpet, and before all her tittering guests, I shat, knowing that she was too drunk and too embarrassed to react. Howls of laughter. I was an overnight sensation. However, as that New Year party wound down, I saw rancor in her look. Eyes as red as a bull's. That morning, as she lay in the bath popping pain-killers and listening to the Viennese New Year's Concert, I hopped up on the toilet and nudged the radio into the water. Problem nipped at the bud, as she always used to say.

Her friends, first Miss van Dijk and then Miss Rue, were cut from the same cloth. Lesbians, they enjoyed having me in the room as they writhed in naked delight, laughing that it was good to have a man about the house. Miss van Dijk was the first Carrier. A damn nuisance, but I began to appreciate it in the winter and finally the whole year through. This doting senior took me everywhere. To the seacoast and hills and a farm, we visited friends and family. It was on one of these trips that I met Mr. Berk. For four years I enjoyed Miss van Dijk's company, until her slavish patterns began to wear thin. On a Saturday in spring I leapt from her crooked arm into the street, timing my crossing with an approaching bus. She fell for it. Never knew what hit her.

Her lover, Miss Rue, was a stepping stone. She did not live well, nor did she really love me, only allowing me to lodge with her in memory of Miss van Dijk. So when their mutual friend, Mr. Berk, came on visits, I plied my charms on him. When a lap dog doesn't like you, you know it as it bathes you in uncomfortable attention. Yapping, snarling and polite reprimands from an owner, like a child, a toy dog is actually a fountain head of embarrassment. But why should a spoiled poodle not like somebody? Usually it is an off smell, or more often than not, the arrogant presumption that the pet will like you. However, I snarled off people cutting in on my territory. I was number one. This was the only way our relationship could work. Unfortunately, Miss Rue failed to appreciate this. When she shoed me away for the last time, I gave her salmonella by hiding a package of chicken until the next time she came back with the groceries. With the date wiped off, she fried it up one night. Her nose and tongue were so damaged from years of smoking that she didn't miss a step. I even politely declined the rancid meat when offered. Down she went with food poisoning. I watched the news until Mr. Berk came to pick me up.

The fat queen they called Puffin treated me like a king. I was the child he never had. I was the lover he managed to keep longer than a week. His culinary expertise fattened me until I looked like a woolly swine. No matter. In those glory years, we traveled the globe and I saw the full extent of my prison. I realized just how lucky I was. There was so much poverty out there, that had I been dumped somewhere else, I might have been promptly eaten. Or laughed at. Either way, together with my fat butter-ball, Puffin and Pumpkin ate and had a hoot tripping the light fandango at the wildest parties, on the most exotic beaches and in eclectic homes of lovers, tricks, friends and all too short acquaintances.

What these men did to their bodies … Mr. Berk was a sight to be seen, naked, strapped to a wooden chair in leather binds, a mountain of shivering fat enjoying anal stimulation and flagellation at the hands of masked torturers. Such fun! Like eating, sex for this man was an addiction. However, there was always the scent of forlornness in those rooms, the hint of an aggression that would kill for curiosity, the taste of sickness and relished moral decay flowing with the cool breeze across the floor. In the end, when Mr. Berk's depression drove him to obscene gluttony both at the table and in those dark rooms, I had to act. It was awful and sad watching that ancient berg of fat take abuse as though it was punishment for his whole, apparently miserable, life. During a particularly sinister ritual with a catheter, a warm water hose, rubber mask, duct tape and stainless steel needles, I raised a stink, howling, snapping at naked ankles … in a state of acute panic, the drugs Puffin had taken and the restraints holding him down blew out his straining heart. Once more I was alone, though that unhappy man was now free.

Mrs. Cartwright-Lloydd was Puffin's sister. A stiff old matron, she kindly let me into her home. I knew I had been spoiled by her brother, yet I soon discovered that this women was down right Shaker in her meanness of living. It was November and the heat was still off! Wooden floors and bare walls and no television … for a while I thought I was back in my prison cell. Within the hour I caught myself plotting my escape, however, I was at a loss into who's arms I should flee. Admittedly, I eventually learned a lot from Mrs. C.-L. and in time came to appreciate her austerity. Again, another insight. She had two canaries and three cats and a huge pillar filled with goldfish; all gifts from her family. Childless, I suppose they thought she needed company. Well, the joke was, she didn't. She cared for us all scrupulously, but preferred to spend her day reading her favorite book and taking walks, which fortunately, I got to accompany her on.

It was a different park, but still the same as the first one, more or less. Trees and grass and a host of refugees, struggling to survive in this urban decor. Kind of amusing, actually. People razed the wilderness and felt guilty enough to offer a tiny bit back in the middle of their cities, like a vase of cut flowers. Almost sterile, to be sure, but then, it seemed nobody got what they wanted in this mass of concrete and infrastructure. So we all suffered together in the park, dog owners and oaks, derelicts and rhododendrons. On sunny days, Mrs. C.-L. would sit on a bench and read, allowing me to roam and range on my own accord when she realized I wasn't about to run away. Those were meager times, but pleasant nevertheless. I missed the parties and the outrage, but this side to life was fulfilling too. I grew to love the richness of the park and admire the barren nature of her cell.

Day after day, page after page, she would sit and read from that same book. I never knew what it was she read, as I never learned to read, either as a jee'asp or a dog. Forget writing. We served as the unseen, laboring slaves of the lowest classes, so other than speech, what did we need with reading, writing and telepathy to communicate? At any rate, speaking was impossible with a dog's mouth. Whatever it was she read kept her content though, letting me explore the world on a different scale neither on a leash, nor the jostling arm of an overprotective matron.

So why did I push her on to the afterlife? I don't know. I've thought about it a lot, but I just can't place my paw on it -- joke. Seriously, I knew exactly what I was doing when I heard the gang of kids lurking in the Rhododendron Dell. I was still loose and began to run circles around her legs, luring her along the asphalt path, yapping and yipping and carrying on like the spoiled creature I was, all the while knowing exactly where I was leading her. It was evening. Most people had left the park. Traffic burst and hummed around the edges, while before us the path dipped down through a series of elegant, shadowy curves. She must have been preoccupied, because normally she would gather me up and hustle me home. We didn't get home. At the bottom, boys fell on her like an Essian swarm, though there was a lot less blood and she lived longer. Laughing, they brutally mugged her, knocking her down. With young, athletic vigor they drove those thick soled sport shoes into her prone body. Her middle age was no shield against violation. Her polite outrage and garbled pleas for peace did not halt their child's creative torture. Her calls to God went unanswered; on Earth too, prayers went unanswered.

Others tried to get me. I took the finger off the first one that reached for me, then spent the next confused moments dodging thrown knives, finding refuge at last under the huge, blooming shrubs until nightfall -- white is certainly not the most practical colour for a wild beast at large. There I hid as they mutilated her in death and tore pages from her book, scattering them across the Dell. Finally, the howls of their maddened lusts faded into the night. Contemplating her corpse until sunrise the next day, it occurred to me that my countrymen should have killed me when they had the chance. Why dump me here and put these people at risk, for I now saw clearly that though my form had changed, though my environs had changed, I was still the same low beast … without the chains of a rigid society to keep me under heel. Unrepentant? At home I had lead a revolutionary front sworn to corrupt the existing government. A new world order, we demanded. We had a mandate to install our own members into all levels of power. Our aim was to lead our people to spiritual truth, where others had failed. We would ascend to the First of the Tenfold's tiers and world power would be ours! As jee'asp, such cries were effortless. We had nothing to loose and everything to gain. However, like fools kept in the dark, when we emerged into the light we underestimated a caste system grown like a crystal over thousands of years. And naturally, those of the Tenfold had everything to loose. All very philosophical. All very glamorous. Though the philosophy and glamour of my outrage and revolutionary struggle escapes me now…

I had risen to be their leader as an executioner. I never did anything violent myself, but I gave the orders with nary a blink. 'Crimes committed in your name', they said during my trial, 'The cold certainty of a soulless creature, a beast without conscience'. I was a monster. I was a demon incarnate who threatened civilization and the orderly workings of state, economy and society. I lead a malevolent swarm who would drive all good before it with barbed flails, back into the noxious subspheres where dwelled the jee'asp … all for the taste of personal power. They announced that my crimes were linked to personal ambition. There was no 'front' or 'caste unrest', but only a jee'asp poisoned by his own avarice. Before it collapsed back into the grey soup from whence it had risen, my own organization's last act was to issue the first of many assassination orders.

Thought betrayed and imprisoned, I am convinced that the questions I raised rang true for many. I was not alone. The search for meaning should never be forgotten or easily shelved in deference to economic gain, political correctness or moral certainty. Why should the prayers of millions go unanswered to maintain stability for so few? And of our leaders -- say, the top four tiers -- do these illustrious families hold the answers for all of our kind? Certainly as leaders, it was within their powers to absolve past wrongs and elevate the jee'asp to the rank of citizens? As leaders, they would naturally want to create a better world and not merely perpetuate the sins of their fathers?

Naturally, the judges were not pleased with these widely broadcasted questions. Naturally, they would have struck me down right then and there if they had thought they could get away with it. Though I was the leader of an outlawed party that never formally existed, I knew there were elements working for me within the Tenfold. Within each level of the rigid caste, there were both individuals and groups that benefited from our civil disruption and impossible demands. In fact, I knew that many were high-born monsters, demons and lunatics bent on corrupting the message of our freedom. Rumour has it that the judges knew this too. The law put a jee'asp to death for any legal infringement, however, if they killed me I might become a martyr, or rather, they would make me a martyr. If they enslaved me and bound me to one of our ruling patriarchs -- a ridiculous proposition for a jee'asp, for whom this punishment would be a blessing -- my existence would always be a threat. Transportation and exile was the safest bet for a monster that had no place in society. Transportation and the fat extortion demands of a few rank and file politicians and holy men in a position to make waves … making waves seemed like the only thing I could do as this convicted monster hid under the mounds of purple flowers, watching young men torture an innocent to death.

A conscience is a tricky thing. It's like dancing: if you're not careful, you'll step on everyone's toes, and if you take the time to master each step with confidence, you'll quickly find that accidents can still happen. As a poodle I didn't dance (as a has'shek, we had no need for toes). As a pet, I guessed I could just forget my past and do as poodles did. Yet, I could not hide. Perhaps the justices knew this too at the time of my sentencing? This is indeed a sort of death, here amongst strangers … as strange as it might sound, strangers in whom I see something of myself.

Mrs. Johnson rescued me the next morning when police lights animated the garden dell. She knew my late mistress and had two dogs of her own. After polite negotiations, my foster home was arranged. Of course, the other two dogs had to go, but I took my time with the competition. Years past and so did they, one to a spring river current and the other to a tram; Yorkshire terriers are never a match for a miniature poodle. Those were gentle years and with the passing of the elderly widow Johnson (to natural causes, I am pleased to say), I was inherited by her sister, the present widow Dobias.

Once more, I lead a life on the cutting edge of society. Distractions, distractions. Mrs. Dobias is a real society woman whose pull matches her mountainous weight. I once more sport a taffeta ribbon on my forehead and my virgin white hair is a much admired work of topiary. Accolades only for the bright little dog who knows so many tricks and who carries himself (when put down by the Carrier) with such self-assuredness. It makes me all the more a canine novelty. Despite the return to the good life, however, I feel something dark nipping at my topiaried tail. Those sobering moments of clarity during and after the death of Mrs. C.-L. in the park have a disturbing tendency to flicker in my thoughts. For the first time in my life I hated myself, not as a jee'asp or political executioner, but as a being. Like most jee'asp, I always blamed others and now I found myself without anyone to blame. At least now, when I am scouting the crowds for prospective owners and keeping an eye out for the first in a series of causal events that might bring the great Mrs. Dobias to a swift and painless end, I know who to blame and on whose shoulders the weight of responsibility must fall.

Fifteen years have passed. I don't think my body is aging as fast as other dogs around me, but I can feel withering changes nevertheless. I suppose even here on Earth, my time will be up. To die away from home and in the body of another … no greater cruelty has ever been suffered by a has'shek, neither jee'asp nor Tenfold. Amusing too, is the one dose of Breed which they offered me; the justices saw to it that I would always remain a dog. I'll never be a cat. I'll never be a human or a tree … never again, a has'shek. A cat … I guess it doesn't matter either way, because when it's all said and done, how important is a clean ass when you've been given a chance to see yourself for who you really are and offered the chance for redemption?