I recently finished reading Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman. In the back of the e-book, there was a personal section by the author, in which he discusses where he gets his ideas. He casually tossed a few ideas out, and I have appropriated one of them, I hope he won't mind.
The first thing that you should know is that werewolves are
real. I don't know about anything else supernatural. I have no idea if
vampires, sparkly or otherwise, exist. I don't know about swamp thing, bigfoot,
or Frankensteinian monsters (Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster, and
I have no problem slapping the back of your head if you mix that up). I don't
know about fairies, faeries, or the fey. I have no particular association with
gnomes, elves, dwarves (mythical dwarves, not people with a condition), elves,
orcs, goblins, or any other bits and bobs of European mythology. I don't have
any special knowledge of Buddha, Shiva, Ganesha, Jehova, Jesus, or Allah, not
beyond the same books that everyone else has access to. But. I do know that
werewolves are real, because one bit my goldfish. It was trying to bite me.
I'll explain.
I live in Seattle. It has hills, nine months of more or less
constant cloud cover, and not actually that much rain. It also, like any major
centre, has pet stores that are open late. Late enough that after supper and a
few drinks one night (just a few, honest), I decided to follow through on a
vaguely-formed desire for companionship and a long-denied childhood yearning
for a pet goldfish. I am currently single, and I have my own apartment, so
after splitting from my friends after supper, there was nothing to stop me from
acting on impulse and stopping at a pet shop.
I poked at the puppies and the kittens, but moved on
quickly, so as not to get attached. I wanted vague companionship, not a furry
life partner. Arriving at the fish section, I had time to pick out a particular
goldfish, come up with a name ("Ted"), and get in several solid
minutes of loitering before a clerk shuffled over to me, zombie-like, to
inquire after my braaaaaaiiins. Note: the clerk was not actually a zombie. I
don't know about zombies, either.
I left the store with Ted in the traditional plastic baggie
full of water and made it about half a block down in the streetlit evening
before being assaulted by a snarling, slobbering, slavering wolfman. I was most
definitely more scared of him than he was of me. I know this because I did a
poor job of containing the urine that I had been
containing since shortly before arriving at the pet shop. Either that, or a werewolf
peed my pants.
We rolled on the ground for an eternal, pants-moistening
moment of abject terror, then traffic broke onto the previously silent street.
Being silhouetted by headlights cost the man-beast some of its nerve, and with
a last (and uncalled for, I felt) shove to the pavement, it pushed off of me
and vanished up the alley it had launched from to begin with.
Actually, it may
have vanished. I wouldn't know, as I was busy lying on the ground, feeling
sanity seep in with the cold from the sidewalk. No one stopped to see if I was
okay, but then, I appeared to be the only one on the street; the cars that had
scared off my furry mugger had already vanished over the hill. It was while
horizontal on the cement, listening to my pulse do a rather convincing
impression of a kettle drum, that I caught a glimpse of a very full moon
through a small hole in the omnipresent cloud cover of my city. "Well,
that explains that," I thought, dusting myself off, realizing during the
dusting process that Ted's bag was leaking.
I hurried back to the pet shop and got a new sack for His
Royal Tedness, getting some fairly interestedly disgusted and disgustingly
interested looks. After Ted was secure, and, after cursory inspection, in no
poorer condition than he'd been when I acquired him, I snuck a look at myself
by way of a reflection in a shop window. I looked like I'd had intercourse with
a particularly unhappy badger. The sleeves of my jacket were in tatters, my
pants had several rips, and my crotch was wet and a bit on the tangy side. I
went home, realized that I hadn't thought to buy a goldfish bowl, and put Ted
into a frosted and bulbous vase given to me by an old girlfriend. Given back, I
should say. I'd given it to her, but when we broke up, she no longer felt compelled
to maintain the pretense of liking it.
I threw out my jacket and pants, ruined as they were, and
inspected myself for damage: some bruises, but astoundingly, no broken skin. I
took a shower and went to bed, falling asleep instantly. I was tired. Coming
down from adrenaline will do that to you.
The next day, I procured the rest of the things one normally
requires to care for a goldfish, including (but not limited to) food, a proper
bowl, some little rocks for the bottom, and the stereotypical castle. The
previous evening's events seemed like the sort of thing best kept to myself,
for reasons of odd looks and not ending up in sort of jacket where the sleeves
tie at the back, and also because it didn't seem particularly real.
Over the course of the next month, I gradually convinced
myself that it had merely been a very large dog, and even made a call to animal
services. Then, about 28 days from the incident, I came home late to find what
looked like a small, brown, furry piranha-seal swimming lazily in Ted's bowl.
Fuck me.
When I crouched down next to the bowl for a closer look, it
noticed me and swam more vigorously in my direction, colliding with the side of
the bowl with an ineffectual, dull *dink* sound. It rebounded a little, but
kept at it, slowly opening and closing its small jaws, revealing a mouth full
of tiny-but-sharp-looking teeth. The phone company had recently dropped off a
pile of the phonebooks that people stopped using since the internet became
ubiquitous, so I went down two flights of stairs to the pile, grabbed one, took
it back to my apartment, and covered the top of the bowl with it. Then I poured
myself a glass of red wine from the mostly-full bottle of red sitting on the
kitchen counter, sat at my little table, and stared at were-Ted.
"Well." I thought. *Dink* "There's no denying
that." *Dink*
I took a large swallow from my glass, as were-Ted softly
thudded against the side of the bowl, slowly, over and over, never causing a
damn thing to happen. I took another large swallow, thought better of it,
drained the glass, refilled it, and sat there for the rest of the night, slowly
drinking and watching my pet tap his snout against the bowl. I went to bed
about two, and the glassy thumping stopped as soon as I was out of sight.
In the morning, Ted was normal again, with no sign of his
Jekyll and Hyde act save for a bunch of fur floating in the water. I cleaned
his tank, fed him, and wondered if it would happen again. I checked the lunar
cycle online, and, sure enough, there were two more nights to go.
In the time it had taken me to look this up on my phone, Ted
had eaten all of the food I'd sprinkled into his little world, and was looking
for more. Turning into a were-goldfish-piranha-seal apparently makes one
ravenous. I fed him a little more, wondering what would happen if I fed him
while he was transformed. I went to Whole Foods, bought a few different meats
(raw and deli), and, on reflection, two more bottles of red wine and a tall can
of beer.
That night, after supper, I cracked the beer and sat down to
watch Ted. I finished the beer while it got dark. I was halfway through the
first bottle of wine when Ted started to get agitated. He was darting around
his bowl, periodically pausing and jerking, and, in fits and starts, changing. First,
he got a little bit bigger; then dark brown fur started to grow on him, while
at the same time his nose distended and his fins extended, though his fins
stayed bright orangey-gold. A little more thrashing and he was done, a little
bigger, a lot hairier, and swimming normally, until he noticed me.
*Dink*Dink*Dink*Dink*
Slowly, unceasingly.
*Dink*Dink*Dink*Dink*
Throwing back the contents of my glass for a little bit of
courage, I pulled the meat out of the fridge, set it onto my large butcher's block,
pulled out a chef's knife, and sliced off a piece of each, about one centimeter
cubed in size.
I put the pieces into a bowl and carried it over to Ted.
*Dink*Dink*Dink*Dink*
From about a meter away, using a large pair of tongs, I
dropped a piece of chicken into the bowl.
Ted ate that.
I tossed in a bit of pork.
Ted ate that, too.
Beef?
Gone.
Salami?
Eaten.
Bacon?
No question.
For interest's sake, I tossed in a cube of tofu, which Ted
sniffed at, then ignored. He looked at me expectantly, but when no more meat
was forthcoming, he resumed swimming, but not at me. I put the phone book back onto his bowl, refilled my glass,
and stared.
An hour later:
*Dink*Dink*Dink*Dink*
I fed him again, and again, it stopped. I stayed up all
night with that fish, and all told, I fed him five times. When dawn broke, he
shrunk down to normal size and shed his fur. I cleaned the fur out of the tank,
and sprinkled some in some fish food, more out of habit than anything, which he
was uninterested in.
I went to bed until noon.
That night, Ted and I repeated our strange game, and then
again every 28 days that have followed. Sometimes, I invite friends over, and
we try feeding him other things. Were-Ted loves tropical fish, but mice are
just too big. They upset him, and it makes a mess of the bowl.
It's amazing what you can get used to.
The End
