An unexpected friend

There it was—one star. A tiny, intangible little star, that carried so much meaning in everyone's life. It could determine the rise or demise of a business, a dream. Even a life.

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As a kid, it was about grades, a way to keep track of how much we learned every year. As an adult, it’s about stars, a government’s method to control people’s behavior. We saw it on fictional series, a foreshadowing of what was to come, but no one believed it would be a reality. Fast-forward, it did. So, I learned to lay low, to keep it under the radar… but today? Today went sideways. Hard. You see, one star rating, nothing happens. Two stars... people start noticing. But three stars on your social skills? They send you to the the psychiatrist...

And I hate psychiatrists.

It was a Karen on steroids. Oh, she was nasty.

“Such a disgusting looking creature… Just disgusting”, she sneered while chewing a bright pink gum that matched her painted cheeks.

“Pardon me?”, I blurted, concealing it back in my pocket.

“D-E-S-gus-tin’. Don’t ya understand tha word? What is it anyways? Some sort of deformed baby or somethin’?”

Offended, I stood up. Not to fight, but to tower. Height was all I had. She, on the other hand, was short. Short, but sharp.

“What? Ya’ think ya scary? Tall and all? Uh-huh, not to me. So disgusting”.

She proceeded to blow a bubble of gum so big, it almost covered her entire face.

POP!

I was torn. My eyelid flinched. Should I storm out of the bus at the next stop? Correct her spelling of "disgusting"? Or find a strong yet politically correct way to put her in her place? As I was still thinking on the best way to address the situation, the bus came to an abrupt halt, causing her to lose her balance. She fell, front first, onto my dry, skeletal elbow. As a result, she choked on her gum and spat it onto the hair of an elderly woman sitting in front of us. Hesitant, the lady reached out for her pearly curls. Her fingers found it with ease: a pink mass tangled in silver strings. Her eyes widened. Her neck twisted far. Too far. Farther than it should... and looked at us. I was like a fish out of the water. Confused and aghast. Sneaky Karen, again, was very quick:

“Not me! Uh-huh. He the one guilty here, hitting me and all with his spiky dead ass elbows, making me almost choke to death, ya know?"

The gum-afflicted woman took her phone, scanned me and Karen, and gave us one star each. Infuriated, Karen also took her phone and did the same, giving me a second star with a comment as a side “rude and desgustin’”. I was discombobulated. The third and last one, was a gift from Karen’s supportive friend. They all went off the bus on the next stop. I? Well, I had to go to the psychiatrist the very next day.

“What was the creature?”

“What do you mean?”

“The creature she said was disgusting”, the psychiatrist inquired, sitting across the table with a pen in hand, as he peered at me over his glasses with a slight tilt of his head.

“Oh, well...”, I hesitated at first, but decided to come clean, "here she is”.

I took her out of my trench coat and showed her to him.

He was, to say the least, astonished.

In my hands was a curled little hairless cat.

“Should be extinct”, I specified and added, “Found her yesterday near a dumpsite. Couldn’t bring myself to leave her there. All cold and wet. So, I decided to take her home and that's when I met this girl on the bus and then...”, I leaned back on my chair and muttered, "well, you know the rest...”.

The cat purred in my huge hands, almost camouflaging itself in them.

“Is it… is it a dog?”

The mind-expert took a closer look.

“A cat”

“Does it eat?”

“Of course! Like us, they need food, warm and love”

“But it’s forbidden. You know that, right?”

“Yes”

“So, why show it to me?”

“You seemed like a reasonable person”

The cat meowed as I put her on the doctor's desk, where she sniffed, purred and played with a pen. She was a curious little creature. He was amused and somewhat fascinated.

We were not used to seeing these animals around nowadays. After the “Great Pet Crisis” - now known as “GPC” -, it was determined that humans could not have domesticated animals anymore. There were far too many irresponsible owners who abandoned them, an abundance of unscrupulous pet shops that sold them carelessly, and countless animals roaming the streets. Many ended up in veterinary clinics with deformed bodies resulting from centuries of selfish breeding. Animal shelters were overflowing, and the list of issues seemed endless. All it took was one country to make a stand. It did not take long before the rest followed suit.

However, what began with good intentions led to a terrible fate for dogs, cats, tortoises, ferrets, bunnies, and even lizards: they were eradicated. Why? Well, not long after the prohibition, a war on illegal pet trafficking began. The government's solution was simple: if pets no longer existed, humans couldn't possess them, and illegal trafficking would end. Thus, the "GPC Enforcement Act" was implemented.

It was a massacre.

Over time, we replaced them with robots, which we grew accustomed to. They were easier to care for—no pee to clean up, no hairy clothes or chewed shoes, and best of all: no more vet bills.

But there was no love, either.

This all happened a century ago. I was born into a petless world. But there's a rumor that this ordeal left people despondent. It changed us. The roots of our partnership with animals were so deep, that the barbaric act had an unprecedented effect on humanity. We became lonely. Very lonely.

“Can… can I touch it?”, asked my appointed psychiatrist.

I nodded.

He rubbed his hands together and then extended his elongated, slightly bent finger due to arthritis, towards the little creature. But she was a sneaky one. Until, at last, contact was made. He was conquered. As was I. How could Karen not be?

I left the psychiatrist’s office with a cat in my pocket and a year's worth of appointments scheduled.

“The patient needs a weekly session for a year – at least – to make sure he does not do anything borderline, in order to avoid any one-star behavior”, the doctor’s notice read.

It was a deal: I could keep the cat and my psychiatrist could see her once a week. We became friends, real friends the three of us. The kind of friends that, like pets, were rare, if not non-existent. The kind of friends that kept a secret for almost 17 years.

In the end, they were not so bad after all, these psychiatrists.

Alex Iwanoff