Brian

I first encountered Brian in a cage in our local pet shop. I've never been one for caged pets; life imprisonment for the heinous crime of being cute strikes me as a little stiff. However, the moment our eyes met I knew our destinies would be intertwined.

He was larger than the other hamsters with whom he shared his cage and he seemed somewhat isolated from his cellmates. This may have been because of his larger size, or it may have been because he had bad breath or was a bit of a geek. I didn't know and I didn't care. I did know that peer-exclusion was a terrible stigma to bear wherever you're placed on the evolutionary ladder. I decided there and then that Brian was coming home with me.
As I paid for the dog food I'd gone in to purchase, I casually asked, "How much for the hamster?"
The assistant narrowed his eyes. "Which one?" He enquired.
"The big one."
He promptly unnarrowed his eyes as his eyebrows shot up to about three inches above his head "BRIAN? You want BRIAN?" And, before I could answer to confirm, he was already shouting up the stairs at the back of the shop. "There's a bloke in here who wants Brian!"
"BRIAN?" came the distant, muffled reply.
I don't know what it was; call it a hunch. I just had a feeling that maybe I was going to regret this impulsive decision. I glanced at the cage. All the hamsters were up on their haunches and staring at me with an expression that seemed to say, "BRIAN? You want BRIAN?"
Brian himself regarded me with equal astonishment, but there was also something else in his expression. His little eyes had begun to brim with tears as he seemed to say, "ME? You want ME?" There was no going back on it now.
"Yes, Brian. How much?"
"Nothing, mate. You can have him for free."
"You sure?" I said with a mounting sense of foreboding.
"Absolutely," said the assistant as he lifted Brian out of the cage and put him in a cardboard box with ventilation holes. "To be honest," he went on "we've been a bit worried about Brian. You might want to keep an eye on him."
"Why?" I asked suspiciously as he handed me the box.
He seemed reluctant to elucidate. "Well, every now and then, he has a tendency to. . .well. . .try to do something. . .er. . .well. . .silly."
"Silly?" I wanted to know more but the assistant was eager to serve the next customer and see the back of me. So I left the shop with my bag of dried dog food in one hand and my box of Brian in the other. Brian scuttled around in his little box, and occasionally, his nose would appear at one of the ventilation holes, but he seemed unconcerned as, with a growing sense of anxiety, I made my way home.


"BRIAN? What kind of a name is that for a hamster?" Anne eyed the little rodent with a certain degree of revulsion, but I could see the first bubbles of maternal instinct rising to the surface.
"Well, we can always change it." I suggested. "It's not as if it would require deed poll."
"No. He's probably used to it now. It would only confuse him"
Bloop! The final bubble had risen, and she was hooked.
"Oh, there's one more thing," I added nonchalantly. "Apparently, he might do something silly."
"Silly?"
"That's all I know."
Brian seemed to settle in well. I couldn't bring myself to put him in a cage so he pretty much had the run of the house. Fudge, our chocolate Labrador had already had a phantom pregnancy so Brian became her 'little darling'. Brian spent much of his time trying to restore his fur after yet another heavy bout of licking. Fudge was a very fussy 'mum', and we were a little concerned that Brian might get mouldy if she didn't ease off a little. He was constantly soggy, and soggy rodents running around the house do tend to give people the heebie-jeebies.

Brian became part of the family. He would join us on walks in the country (although we did have to keep stopping for him to catch up), and he even enjoyed chasing sticks. Bringing them back was a bit of a challenge for him, but he did his best. Brian and Fudge were inseparable. Apart from an obsessive passion for watching 'reality' TV shows, however ("Big Brother" being his favorite), we had seen little sign of the "silly" behavior we had been warned about.

Then, on a particularly warm night in July, we were woken by Fudge's frantic barking on the landing. I rushed out, stark naked and armed with a candlestick, expecting to encounter a burglar or maybe an axe-murderer (it's interesting that one never hears of a 'gun-murderer' or a 'knife-murderer'. . .but I digress). Fudge was barking at the window on the landing, which was left open to let in what little breeze there was. Brian was perched outside on the window-ledge, his eyes staring wildly as if under an hypnotic spell.
"Wassgoinon?" said Anne, still bleary eyed from sleep as she joined us on the landing.
"It's Brian. He's on the window-ledge."
"What the hell is he doing out there?"
Well, it looks like he wants to jump," I pointed out. "You try to coax him back in, and I'll go outside ready to catch him. . . just in case."
It was as well it was a warm night as I hadn't stopped to put anything on. I found myself praying not only for Brian's safety, but also that the neighbors wouldn't decide that a cool stroll in the garden was the very thing on such a stifling night. The sight of me naked with my arms outstretched, murmuring, "steady, Brian. . .steady," would certainly have been enough to ensure a visit from Her Majesty's Constabulary.

Each time Anne attempted to grab Brian, he would give a little squeak and lurch dangerously over the edge. It was taking some time, and my arms were beginning to ache.

"Just go for it, Anne!" I said, trying to whisper and shout at the same time.
At last, Anne made a valiant grab but was a fraction of a second too late. Brian had launched himself off the edge and was hurtling toward me, his eyes still staring wildly. I managed to catch him but fell over backwards in the process, landing in a patch of stinging nettles. (OK, OK. I'm a sloppy gardener, but this was no time for self reproach.) I howled in pain as Brian leaped out of my arms and made a bee-line for the goldfish pond. Lights were coming on in the adjoining houses as I got painfully to my feet and headed off in pursuit. I was wondering how I would explain all this in court. It would certainly make an interesting case.

I reached the pond in time to see Brian, clutching as big a rock as he could get his little arms around, just as he hurled himself into the murky waters.
"BRIAN!" I yelled, abandoning all caution now as I plunged my hands into the pond, scrabbling about among the slimy weeds.

I heard cries of "What's going on out there! You know what time it is!?" when suddenly I felt something furry. I yanked him out, but he had now become slippery and was immediately out of my grasp again. He ran off and darted through the hedge at the bottom of the garden, heading for the railway embankment. Being less well-equipped for darting through hedges, particularly in my state of undress, this was not an experience I'd care to repeat. As I ran barefoot over the stony ground I heard the church clock strike three.

"GOD....NO-O-O-O!" I yelled as I ran. Despite the many valid complaints about the unreliability of British Rail, the 3:05 from Huddersfield is as regular as clockwork.
I found Brian lying across the rail as the sound of the express pounded in my ears. The whole track was vibrating as I snatched him, just in time, as the locomotive thundered past. It was a close call.

"I wonder if you'd mind coming along with us, sir?"
I turned to see the anxious face of a kindly police officer, no doubt unsure of what to expect from a hedge-battered, naked man clutching a soggy rodent by a railway embankment at 03:00 am. I felt that I owed him some sort of explanation but, oddly enough, this didn't help.


Well, I managed to escape prosecution if only because they were at a loss as to what to charge me with. Nevertheless, I'd had to sit around in the police station, wrapped in a blanket for about four hours. I had to rewrite my statement eleven times before they finally decided to ditch the whole thing. Sgt. McPherson regarded me as an unsavory individual, but he did seem to take a shine to Brian who was also wrapped in a blanket and seeming much calmer at last.

"I think this poor little feller should see a vet" he said, looking at me with eyes that quite clearly lamented the abolition of hanging "Look at the state of him!". He had a point, Brian did look a bit of a mess but, then so did I and there was precious little sympathy heading my way.

Police are quite accustomed to summoning lawyers and doctors at a moment's notice but vets, apparently, are a little out of the ordinary. The new day was well under way by the time the vet arrived to give Brian the once-over.
He examined Brian fairly thoroughly and seemed satisfied that he had not suffered any undue harm.

"He seems OK in himself despite his ordeal," he announced, "but you should be advised that lemmings never really make very good pets."
"LEMMINGS?"
"Uh-huh," he nodded. "You never know when they might try to do something. . .you know. . .silly".