Job Openings: Philosophy and Prompts

What If... #4

What if your pet is secretly an Animagus and has just been putting up with you until they can escape, or until their mission is over? What would that mission be? Who would send them to watch you? How long have they been watching you? What have they seen you do and heard you say? What do they know about you that would be incriminating?

What if they were actually an alien invader who morphed into that form to learn more about humans? What if that is their true form and they just pretend to be unintelligent and incapable? What if they have strength, intelligence, or powers you never dreamed they could have? What if they think your dullness, weakness, and cockiness are amusing, even endearing?

Is that glassy-eyed look the expression of a curious extraterrestrial being, or of a cold-blooded genocidal maniac? Are those beady little eyes planning the destruction of the planet, or are they full of genuine affection?

Would they spare you? Have you been kind enough to them that they can see some good in our species, or are you everything they ever feared about humans? Did you harden their heart and reinforce their plan for conquest? Is it only you that they have faith in? Would they keep you as a pet while they destroyed everything you knew and loved/hated? Would you be happier that way?

At the end of civilization in the care of superior beings, would anything you knew or understood mean anything? Who would you be without your family and friends, your culture, your environment? What would happen to you without your independence? Would your brain become as deadened as theirs?

Would they keep you in a tiny cage and feed you out of little plastic dishes twice a day? Would they give you a little porch swing to sit and sleep on and toys to jingle to keep your sanity? Would they give you a piece of wood to scratch to trim your fingernails? Would they try to train you to do tricks to amuse them and give you chocolate-flavoured treats when you obeyed? Would you be reduced to begging for scraps of their food and singing old top 40's hits to remind yourself how to speak your human language? Would you try to imitate their sounds even if you could never quite figure out what they were saying? Would they put a little heat lamp over your new home to remind you of what your sun used to feel like? Would they tie a string around you and take you out to show their friends how good of a being they were for "rescuing" you?

Would they try to breed you with another being's pet human to make more domesticated humans? Wouldn't there be a demand for such an exotic pet if the species was extinct on their home world? Would this be the extent of your human interaction? What if they didn't speak your language? What if they did, but they were from another time and they couldn't understand you?

How long would they be able to keep you alive? Would you want to be alive? What would happen if they got tired of you and your endearing stupidity, your messes, your neediness? Would you try to make yourself think that you were one of them? Would you misbehave to try to get them to get rid of you? How would they punish you? Would they sterilize or maim you to try to get to behave the way they want you to? Would you still try to hurt them, escape from them, get them to hate you?

Would they use this opportunity to take revenge on you for all of the wrongs you did to them?

Would you have been better off if they had destroyed you with the rest of your world?

Would you try to kill other humans to spare them this fate?

Would you look forward to your next big adventure with your old comrade, just like old times?

Look into those wide, patient eyes and ask yourself: are you a good friend?