NZBC Summer Fiction: The Perfect Pet

By Malcolm Hutchinson

The lizard, if that's what you would call this lustrous creature, hung by its claws on the wall in a patch of sunlight. It seemed perfectly motionless.

When the light caught it just so, its skin would explode in breathtaking colour. All the hues of the rainbow shimmered across the back of the creature. If you looked closely, you could see a full spectrum, from red through orange, yellow green and blue, to violet, splayed across each tiny scale. A million miniature prisms, all scattering and refracting the soft afternoon light.

Leslie Rickets Stanley looked very closely. She stood captivated, her nose pressed against the plate glass of the display window, mere inches from the creature. Intently, and with an expression akin to rapture, she moved her head from side to side, gasping aloud as the colours twisted and transformed in the changing light, displaying fluid patterns of extraordinary complexity and rare charm. The creature fascinated her the way a colourful toy holds an infant's attention.

It was about as long as her forearm. Thin and squat, with spindly legs ending in tiny hand-like feet and sharp claws. It was definitely a lizard, but what species would be impossible to tell. Its body was that of a large gecko or skink, but its head looked like a frog, with protruding eyes and a rounded snout. The mouth was curved into a cruel smile, and the eyes stared unblinkingly back at her.

She had been on her way home along High Street, just short of her tram stop, when the thing in the window had caught her eye with a flash of colour on this grey and dreary day. A moment's break in the cloud had allowed a solitary ray of sunlight to strike the creature. Now it was gone, the lizard had lost its lustre and she felt slightly foolish. But still, the animal fascinated her.

She took a step backward. The sign above the portal read HOLLOWAY AND DEVINE. BIODESIGN. LIVING ART.

"Exquisite, isn't it?"

The whispered voice in her ear startled her and she jumped. Beside her stood a very little man, thin and obsequious, with an immaculately coiffed hairpiece over a high and furrowed forehead. He wore a velvet topcoat, coloured a deep and lustrous crimson. A brocade silk vest in purple and blue covered his distended body and a sunset yellow bow tie closed around his throat. His trousers were raw silk, moss green and tapered to tiny feet enclosed in tight black shiny leather shoes.

"I just adore the colours, don't you?" He arched an eyebrow. "Ah, but I see I have startled you. Please forgive me."

He extended his hand, small, with long thin fingers. In-bred courtesy and the shock of having him appear beside her caused her to offer her own in return, accepting his archaic grip. The hand in hers felt cold and papery.

"I am Doctor Holloway. I saw you just now admiring the chromatasaur. One of our finer creations, of course. Would you be interested in allowing me to conduct you through our showing room, that you might see what else we have on offer?"

"Um... I haven't much time," she stammered. But the little man had not let go of her hand and was even now drawing her closer, leading her into the boutique.

"Come now, Mrs Stanley. You have already shown impeccable taste in choosing to stop at out shop window. A moment more of your time, and I promise to show you the most wondrous things."

The thought that this beautiful creature might not be unique, and that it may be possible to possess one, took hold of her mind, and she allowed herself to be lead inside. It never occurred to her to wonder how he had come to know her name.

Dr Holloway chattered constantly as he led her through the door and into an opulently decorated room.

"Mrs Stanley, I hope you will appreciate the beautiful animals we are about to see for what they are. These are not mere household pets, a companion and a chore. Oh no, they are very much more than this. Each one of these terraria contains an exquisitely crafted, immaculately presented Work of Art."

She bent before a plate glass window set into the wall. Behind it, another colourful lizard clung to a stick of fake wood embedded in the base of the viewing case. Powerful sunlamps illuminated the creature, and beautiful colours marched across its back. Cobalt blues and rich forest greens, bands of the deepest velvet crimson surrounded by flashes of electric yellow and sunset pink.

The colours and patterns changed when she moved her head. Like a hologram, but with an infinitely wider range and far more subtlety. It was simply the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, and it awakened in her a longing that seemed somehow as subtle and intense as the colours playing on the skin of this exquisite little creature.

"The colours... they're so beautiful." She was unable to take her eyes from the creature. "Why are they like that, do you suppose?"

Beside her, the little man was wringing his hands together in glee.

"Oh, they're like that because the scales of the animal all have a thin refractive coating. Something caused by splicing a butterfly gene into the DNA sequence." His eyes gleamed as he continued.

"I love the colours, don't you? Of course, it's a very tricky procedure. Yes, very tricky indeed." His eyebrows twitched and he peered at her intently. She was still lost in study of the creature behind the glass.

"Oh but the most extremely delicate part and the most difficult thing is, you see, getting the colours to come out just so."

His excited little hands continued to bunch into fists and open again, like bony desiccated flowers. He almost jumped up and down, so great was his pleasure.

"Yes, yes, that's the real art to the procedure. Sadly, that's the bit I have never been able to master. I, with all my scientific learning, my medical training and my study of genetics, I must regretfully admit that I am little more than a technician. Oh, I can combine the genetic strains, I can determine the behaviour of the beast by how much of what reptile I insert into the mix. A little bit of frog for complacency, or alligator for elegance and drama. A touch of Komodo dragon for oriental mystique, so to speak. But I have never been able to produce a creature with quite the artistic flair which you see before you now. This is where my partner, the brilliant designer Devine, excels me."

He clasped his hands together and was now definitely hopping up and down on the spot.

"Oh don't worry, they make perfect pets. They are designed to require little maintenance. They will happily eat flies or other household pests, and they require feeding but seldom. Like most reptiles, they enjoy the sun, which is convenient, of course, because sunlight reveals their brilliance.

"Imagine, if you will, the envy you will elicit from your social set by being the proud possessor of such an unusual and astonishing pet. It will be the centre of any dinner party, a talking piece and a provider of immense amusement for yourself and your friends."

He burbled on, but Leslie Rickets Stanley ignored him. She moved from case to case, peering at the different creatures on display. She had to have one. It didn't matter what the cost. And besides, the funny little man had a point. What would her friends say when they saw this jewel of a pet?

But which one to buy? Did she want the one in the corner case, the one with the garden green and golden yellow colouring which would go well with her plastic plant collection? Or the royal blue one which stood at attention on an amber glass ornamental perch? Or did she want the only one in the shop that showed any sign of movement, the lizard with one front foot and the opposite back foot lifted artfully in the air, like some kind of reptile yoga? Every few seconds it would exchange the feet in the air with those on the ground, a move so swift it looked immediate. The way it moved, it was just so... cute. And so hard to choose between them.

"... a range of attributes of your choosing." A line in the continuous patter coming from Doctor Holloway percolated through her thoughts. She stood up from her peering crouch and looked down at the Doctor.

"My God, do you mean you make these things to order?"

"Why yes, of course, Mrs Stanley. What you see here are only samples. Some of our finest work, to be sure. And you can certainly purchase any of these which strike your fancy. But if you so desire, you can take a hand in the design of your perfect pet. You can choose which attributes to enhance, which to bring to the fore, to complement your existing decor, or perhaps to make a personal statement. And in doing so you are doing something really very special. By designing your own chromatasaur, you are involved in the creation of a truly unique life-form, one that has never before graced our planet."

As he talked, his hands wrung together into a ball. The fingers unwrapped slowly, moving outward and up, like a time-lapse movie of a tuber sprouting.

"Do you have a particular colour preference? We can emphasise one part of the spectrum over others. Do you like movement? By combining the genes from certain animals, we can replicate wild behaviours.

"Like the sand-lizard in this case beside us. Did you know there was once a kind of lizard which lived in the Sahara Desert? Standing on two feet like that, and swapping them around, was the sand-lizard's way of dealing with standing on the very hot, hot sand one invariably finds in the Sahara. Quite charming, wouldn't you say? We were able to isolate the particular gene producing that behaviour and splice it into the sequence for this animal.

"Here, take my card. Our site has a comprehensive list of living design products we offer here at Holloway and Devine. You can examine options and use the Virtual Pet application to help you design the type of animal you want. Later, when you have chosen your virtual pet, you can send us the specifications, and we will produce one for you.

"Of course the most profoundly beautiful thing is that no two pets ever come out quite the same. As I believe I mentioned before, by acquiring a perfect pet from Holloway and Devine Biodesign, you come into possession of something truly unique."

She took the card he pressed into her hand, thanked the man and left, catching the next tram to her apartment building.

* * * * *

She bustled across the living room, inserted Doctor Holloway's card into the reader beside a pale blue plastic azalea, and stood back in the middle of the room. Immediately the tasteful green wallpaper dissolved, and an image of a beautiful multi-coloured reptile appeared in the middle of the wall. The lizard morphed into the Holloway and Devine logotype and a list of buttons appeared next to the graphic.

She pointed her finger and moved through the website, rapidly reading the advertising blab, which was obviously written by Doctor Holloway himself. She stopped frequently to stare at wall-sized images and animations of fabulous creatures, bewildered by the range of possibilities.

She found the Virtual Pet application, fell back into a chair facing the wall and began to design her own, unique reptile pet.

* * * * *

Days later, Leslie Rickets Stanley entered her building with a small, elegant plastic box tucked under her arm. She rode the elevator to her floor, and pressed her thumb against the ID pad at her door. Hearing the lock disengage, she pushed the door open with her foot and entered the apartment.

Putting the box carefully down on the bench, she slid the catch back and opened the lid. Inside, lying perfectly reposed and clutching a stick of fake wood, was her new pet lizard.

She lifted it out by the stick and held it up under a kitchen spot lamp. She had ordered one twenty centimetres long, in forest green and sunset orange. It had a long, elegant snout, shaped vaguely like a crocodile's, and thin legs that ended in long, fingered feet, designed so it could cling to the plastic foliage. The fingertips had tiny suckers on them, so the creature could also cling to the wall. Its tail curved gracefully around the stick.

The best thing was the way it fluoresced under the light, exploding in beautiful colours, every bit as stunning as the first one she had seen in the boutique window. Doctor Holloway had said sunlight was the best way to bring out the colours, so she carried it across the room to the balcony and held the stick up next to the glass door. The lizard didn't move. She tapped it gently against the door, and tried sliding the stick back and forth. The lizard still didn't move.

Leslie Rickets Stanley wondered if perhaps she had been given a dead one by mistake. She lifted the finger of her free hand and touched the creature gently on the side of its head.

It whipped around and bit her, sinking some of its tiny spiked teeth deep into her finger, then hopped quickly onto the glass door and froze again.

Leslie Rickets Stanley shrieked, and grabbed her hand, dropping the stick. She ran to the kitchen and plunged it under running water, washing a stream of blood down the sink. She took a paper towel and wrapped her finger in it, squeezing hard to stop the bleeding. Her heart pounded, and she found she was gasping, but realised the wound didn't really hurt. It was the shock of the creature moving so suddenly, and biting her, that had caused her scream.

She pulled the paper towel away and peered at her finger. Four tiny prick wounds, one with a drop of blood growing around it. Nothing to worry about at all, really. A few more minutes under pressure and the bleeding will stop, and then you'd hardly know it had happened. How silly of her to panic like that.

She walked over and looked at the lizard, which hadn't moved at all, but was now shining radiantly in the afternoon sun. Its tiny crocodile snout seemed curved into an ironic smile. She gazed at it for a few minutes, captivated as she had been on that first day. Then she went about the business of organising a dinner party. She had to show off her new pet.

Hours later, she decided she was feeling really rather funny. Her head felt light and her stomach heavy. She put a hand to her forehead and found she was sweating. The end of her finger, where the lizard had bitten her, was swollen and tender.

She looked for Dr Holloway's card and put it back into the machine. She clicked on the phone call button, and moments later Dr Holloway's face appeared, looking much larger than life and peering down at her from the wall.

"Ah, Mrs Stanley, I've been expecting your call. How may I be of service?"

She swooned, and her vision went red. Clutching the back of the chair, she stammered "the lizard... it bit me." She felt hot and cold, and couldn't see very well. "I think I'd better sit down," she said.

"Oh, I see. Yes, well, I'll be right over. I have a clinic above the boutique. I can bring you back here and treat you immediately. Don't worry, it's nothing very serious. Finished in a jiffy, really. I'll be right over, and we'll sort you out directly. No, no, I insist." The wallpaper returned.

He accompanied her down in the elevator and out into the street, where he hailed a cab and they sped through the city to High Street and the Holloway and Devine boutique. Leslie Rickets Stanley felt worse with every passing minute, but managed to follow the little doctor into a room behind the showing room. He lay her down on a bed and put his hand on her forehead once again.

"Yes, yes. I'm sorry Mrs Stanley, really I am. But it has to be done, you see. The brilliant Devine needs this in order to survive, and every now and again we need to choose someone.

"Do you know much about reptiles, Mrs Stanley? You see, the Komodo Dragon used to have a very special method of hunting. It had a particularly septic bite. It didn't bother with the struggle of the kill, it just bit its prey once and waited for nature to take its course. The bite becomes infected, and the prey soon dies of blood poisoning. Then the Komodo Dragon merely has to dispose of the corpse, so to speak.

"Think of it as your contribution to Art, Mrs Stanley." He looked over his shoulder. "Yes, my dear Devine, she is nearly ready."

She could barely hear him, but could feel somehow the presence of another creature in the room. Its skin was covered with a thousand tiny scales which caught the light and reflected it through all the colours of the spectrum. As it leaned over her, Leslie Rickets Stanley marvelled in her delirium at the pretty colours, and then she closed her eyes.

—THE END—

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