Dysfunctional

Dys•func•tion•al - Adjective: Not operating normally or properly. Deviating from the norms of social behavior in a way regarded as bad. Abnormal.



As you enter the room you notice two things: first, the only light is coming from a single light bulb that hardly illuminates the spot beneath it. The second is the shape of someone, or something, in the corner. At your entrance it moves forward a bit and you see that the dark shape is a pet.

“Greetings stranger,” says the pet from his spot at the far end of the room. “Come in, come in. What’s that? My name? My name is unimportant. But if you must, you may call me Dysfunctional. Why, you ask? Well, it’s quite a story…”

He moves closer and you take in his misshapen body. He grins at you and reveals a row of incredibly sharp teeth before stepping forward into the light more. You realize how hideous the creature before you looks but decide to say nothing that might anger him.

“I know what you are thinking,” he sighs. “And to think, I was once a normal pet.

“My old owner became obsessed with zapping me after he discovered Euclid and his blasted machine. No matter how many warnings Euclid gave, my owner continued to take me to be zapped…

“I remember every moment of it. Every day…was pure torture.”

The monster turns his face towards you and you realize he has no eyes. The creature before you is unable to see you, or itself.

“Do you know how horrible it is? To feel every molecule of your body change without your wanting it to? To feel your bones snapping and rearranging every hour or so? To go from having wings to having none? And maybe, if you are lucky, your color will be the only thing to change.

“Of course you don’t know how it feels,” he scoffs. “You’re a human. Most of you get us to change who we are. We are so happy to be chosen; we think you choose us for who we are, not to be some experiment for you to toy with. You place us in front of that machine and we have no idea what is going to happen to us…and BAM!”

He shouts the last word, causing you to jump, and it reverberates off the walls eerily. He shakes his head and appears to be reliving some part of his tale in his mind before he clears his throat.

“Can you believe that I was once a Glade pet? A gorgeous Glade pet,” he mutters, almost so quiet that you hardly heard him.

“But one day, my owner decided I wasn’t good enough for him. He took me to get zapped, hoping he would end up with some Angelic Lain or whatever the passing craze was at the time. All I remember after the zap is darkness and my owner’s voice, full of disgust, saying ‘What is that hideous thing?’ Euclid explained to him that his zapper sometimes turned pets into experiments. My experiment is kind of a….cocktail of other species.

“In a fit of rage my owner demanded that Euclid ‘get rid of that ugly beast’ or zap me back. But Euclid told him that this time, my change was permanent. And I sat in the middle of the room, shivering and wondering what was wrong with me. I couldn’t see myself, I was blind because my owner was addicted to zapping me.”

The monstrosity before you falls silent, and you begin to feel the stirrings of pity rise up in you. Is this how your pets feel when you zap them? Do they harbor these same emotions inside them?

Before you can contemplate this further, the pet starts to speak again:

“My owner decided to…get rid of me. But,” the being grins again, baring his fangs, “he’s no longer around. I wasn’t going to let another take my place as his new plaything.”

He begins to sound more ferocious and angrier than earlier, but you notice him glancing towards something lying in the corner he had been in before your entrance. You begin to ask about the other owner and why he is ‘no longer around’ but he cuts off your thought with his next sentence:

“But now I have a lovely owner…she takes care of me and accepts me for me, not for what I look like. Now, if you don’t mind, I have some business to attend to. Thank you for listening to my tale,” he says before pushing you out the door.