MANPET

To Sigizmund with love

For lunch, they brought me a dozen fresh oysters with styptic white wine, followed by splendid medium-rare Irish steak with onions, and finally profiteroles covered with hot chocolate and a glass of mawky port wine. A cigar, for some reason, didn't taste good at all to me today, and I was about to protest, but then I figured it would be easier to just throw it on the floor and light a normal cigarette. Anyway, when Peter and Ziggy come home in the evening, the maid will complain about me as usual. Ziggy will lock herself in the bedroom and weep, and Peter will cast perplexed glances in my direction, pretending to watch TV...

I still don't understand why they call this beautiful youngish woman by a dog's name. All this time I've never bothered to ask Peter what her real name is… As for the servants, I stopped talking to them a long time ago. They believe it's me who is pitiful and deserves scorn... Idiots! At first, I tried to explain something to this senile fool who waits at dinner, but I soon realized that it's pointless. Even the certificate of my complete mental capacity that he had found in Peter's study didn't change the servants' attitude towards me. That's strange; logically, they should rather hate and despise their masters… Whatever! Anyway, in two days I'll be out of here. Unless, of course, I have the heart to extend the contract.

Last night, for some reason I dreamed that I was a little gray bird pecking at heavy cast-iron bars with my pitiful beak... What nonsense! I guess some rebellious molecule in my brain, some zealous little gray cell, decided to remind me of who I am and what I do here. A little cell trying to break free of the cell... Although, it seems to me more and more that the world around me is really a cell turned inside out, and I, enclosed on all sides, live in that only space that can be considered freedom... Upon waking, I laughed so hard that one of those housemaids who is always wandering in and out of the rooms tried to cover me with a big colorful shawl. It seems that the ignorant, constantly frightened creature truly considers me somewhat akin to a parrot. It amuses me to watch her astonishment each time I greet her, asking her how she is.
Today is Friday, therefore the servants will disappear after dinner until Monday, and Ziggy herself will prepare breakfast tomorrow. That's why I'm going to act up all Saturday long, and on Sunday they will order me breakfast from some restaurant. Of course, after restaurant food I can hardly sleep: Ziggy flat out refuses to add sedative tablets to it, and after their usual Saturday games on the rug in the living room, I just feel like wailing and getting out ahead of time. But ten million dollars! That is a strong argument in my debate with myself. Besides, Peter and Ziggy are nice people and treat me even better than the contract calls for. Sometimes it seems that Ziggy has grown seriously attached to me over these three years...

To tell you the truth, when I read that tiny advertisement in the Village Voice, I couldn't even imagine what would come out of all this. And if it wasn't for my desperate situation - my wife, who dumped me like a shitty diaper, my total lack of employment, friends and money... The ten million was deposited into my account right upon my signing the contract - I personally called my bank to make sure.

When my mood gets worse - and that happens often lately - I retire to the alcove in my cage, sit down on the toilet, and glumly stare at the floor. The time has long passed when I would be repressing my loneliness by musing on what I would do with my millions. Over the three years, I came up with all the possible ideas, and the thought of my new found wealth no longer delighted me. There was a period of time when those throes of yearning made Ziggy really worried, and she invited a doctor over almost weekly - she was probably afraid that the chronic administration of tranquilizers would affect my health. One night, she woke me up and said that I could take strolls inside the house if I wanted to. While Peter was on a business trip, of course...

I am a pet, or rather a manpet as they call it nowadays; at least until the expiration of the contract. During all this time - for three years - I was superbly fed, read books and watched TV, they fixed my bad teeth and delivered me from the necessity of wearing eyeglasses or contact lenses. As a matter of fact, I even like it here... Some twenty years ago no one would even dream of keeping a human in their home as a talking pet. Ziggy told me that before me, they had two cats and an iguana. Perhaps that's why the idiot housemaid kept discreetly throwing bread crusts and pieces of sausage skin at me, at first. At some point I realized that I was seriously beginning to see the people around me as apes in a huge zoo enclosure. Everyone, even Peter and Ziggy...

The dinner was disgusting. I had asked a million times not to be served steamed broccoli and red caviar - I hate both! In Ziggy's opinion, I was just being fussy. But she herself is so edgy and nervous: this morning they gave me a new contract, and now it's up to me to decide whether to sign it or tear it to small pieces. For lack of anything better to do I scrutinized that multipage document. Paragraph 33 stated: due to a number of reasons, it is undesirable to put the manpet's health at the risk that the administration of tranquilizers entails. That is why it is recommended to perform a castration at the signing of the second term contract... In this case, the amount of compensation doubles. What bastards!

I dumped the remains of my dinner right on the rug. That very rug, on which Ziggy so likes to make love to Peter when no one's home. No one but me… On Saturday, after breakfast, I will demand pancakes with jam and whipped cream and will just lie around all day and watch TV - my favorite Twilight Zone. I like it here. Of course, I'll choose freedom, God damn them!

Translated by Vita Barshteyn