Fiction: A Good Pet

By Tom Koperwas

It was late in the morning when Walter Reese raised the window blinds with his twisted, claw-like hand to peer out at his neighbour, Mrs. Houseley.

He'd spent the summer watching the ailing stroke victim and her ancient dog, Maggie, sitting together outside the back door of her home on a tall wooden deck high above her finely manicured lawn. He remembered the day when the dog rose shakily to its feet and gingerly approached the stairs. Fascinated, he watched as the blind and deaf animal tried to descend the steps unassisted. Terrified, Mrs. Houseley called to her son to retrieve the restless animal. But Maggie persisted, and in the weeks that followed the dog achieved its goal, reaching the safety of the lawn far below the deck.

Inspired by her pet's courageous example, Mrs. Houseley ventured a tentative step down the deck stairs. Walter held his breath when she halted on the first step. She wasn't blind like her dog. She could see the lawn far below the stairs, and her eyes were filled with fear. But she could also see Maggie wandering about on the grass. So Mrs. Houseley persisted, and by the end of summer, she was standing on the green lawn next to her beloved pet. 

Walter lowered the blinds and looked at himself in the large hallway mirror. His aged face was ragged, with deeply etched lines and pale, faded eyes; his ancient body stooped and crooked. The image of fading mortality reflected in the mirror made him quake with fear. 

But Walter had gained something of value from his summertime observations, something that filled him with a sense of hope. He'd seen the salutary influence of a good pet.

"Maybe a pet could help me too?" he wondered to himself. 

****

Walter raised the blinds and sat down in his easy chair next to the amazing Mr. R., where he could watch him in the light. He marveled at the lizard's ability to change colours, its eyes that rotated separately to focus on two objects simultaneously, and its catapult-like tongue that shot out to catch live crickets. The little chameleon provided him with an endless source of joy and amusement.

"I wonder why I didn't get a pet sooner," he said, happily, to himself.

The weeks passed, and Walter began to forget about Mrs. Houseley and her dog. He didn't even glance at the mirror with its image of a weary and spent man. 

Then one day, Walter woke up and found himself unable to move his left arm and leg. A general numbness permeated the left side of his body. When he tried to call out for help, he found himself incapable of uttering a single word. Rising shakily to his feet, he fell face forward onto the floor.

****

Walter entered the house dragging his left leg. Slowly, painfully, he peeled off his coat and hung it up, then turned to look at himself in the hall mirror. The stroke had left its mark on him: his clothes hung limply from his partially paralyzed body, his face was sunken and full of shadows, and his good hand shook as he leaned precariously on a cane. Dropping down into a chair, he came face to face with Mr. R. Then he did something he hadn't done in all the weeks he'd been in the hospital—he smiled. It was good to be back home with his lovely pet.

"Mrs. Houseley took good care of you," he observed, looking at his little friend.

The chameleon rotated its eyes and scrutinized him.

"I'm dying slowly, and no one cares," Walter continued plaintively. "I don't have a friend in the world... except you. If only I could bury all the pain I feel inside, Mr. R. Tell me how, if you can..."

As he sat there pondering his plight, the chameleon's body began to change colours until it became a deep blue matching the room's wallpaper. Walter's eyes widened.

"Hide in plain sight, eh, Mr. R.?" he whispered. "Maybe I can hide from all the pain, too," he mumbled as he lowered the blinds and rolled the castered chair away from the pale light leaking through the slats. When night came, he rose to his feet and shuffled listlessly about in the dark, deep in thought.

The next day, when he woke up, he discovered he was short of essential supplies. So he picked up the phone and placed an order requesting they be delivered to the front door. All day long, the packages sat on the porch. When it was dark outside, he reached through a crack in the open door and pulled them into the shadowy house.

In the months that followed, Walter assiduously avoided any form of human contact, barricading himself in his home by day, living in the dark by night. He saw no one and no one saw him... no one, that is, except his confidante and inspiration, Mr. R. 

****

The tall policeman pounded his fist hard against the door.

"I'm worried about the poor man," cried Mrs. Houseley. "No one in the neighbourhood has seen Mr. Reese for months. I do hope I did the right thing when I called the police."

"Please stand back, Mrs. Houseley," urged the stout, older policeman, with a wave of his beefy hand. "We're going to have to break down the door."

The tall policeman's foot struck the door with a loud bang, sending splinters of wood flying into the air. A second, more forceful kick followed, leaving the door yawning open.

"Look at that, Frank!" exclaimed the tall policeman upon stepping inside the shadowy house.

Walter Reese's body, pale, colourless, and shriveled, lay partially hidden inside a scattered pile of filthy, soft mattresses in the center of the living room floor, like a maggot burrowed deep inside the cavity of a twisted carcass.

Frank ran out of the house gasping for air. When he'd regained his composure, he pulled out his cell phone and called for an ambulance.

The tall policeman exited the fetid interior of the house a moment later carrying the shrunken old man, who'd wrapped himself tightly inside a tangled mass of bedsheets like a misbegotten mummy. "What could make a person hide away from the world like that?" he asked, as he gently laid the old man on the lawn. "He must be mad!"

"A crazy recluse like Howard Hughes?" replied Frank.

"Could be..." he whispered.

****

Walter Reese watched intently, his eyes swiveling independently in his head as the officers struggled to awaken the cast-off shell of his former self. He'd learned to love the taste of crickets, and there were so many in the house. Enough to last a good, long time...

 

 

 

 

 

Thomas Koperwas is a retired teacher living in Windsor, Ontario, Canada who writes short stories of horror, crime, fantasy, and science fiction. His story Vacation won Freedom Fiction Journal's Top Crime Editor's Choice Awards: List Of Exemplary Fiction Vol. 16, 2024. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming in: Anotherealm; Jakob’s Horror Box; Literally Stories; The Literary Hatchet; Literary Veganism; Bombfire; Pulp Modern Flash; Savage Planets; Dark Fire Fiction; The Sirens Call; Yellow Mama Webzine; 96^th of October; Underside Stories; Danse Macabre; A Thin Slice Of Anxiety; Androids and Dragons; Chewers & Masticadores Canada; The Piker Press; Stupefying Stories Showcase; Metastellar; The Yard: Crime Blog; Blood Moon Rising Magazine; Corner Bar Magazine; Free Bundle Magazine; The Chamber Magazine; Suburban Witchcraft Magazine; Black Petals Magazine; InterNova Magazine; Freedom Fiction Journal.