The Human Pet: A Sci-Fi Romance

Part 14

Kayla

The most beautiful image on the wall awakens me, the rising of a blue star and three moons.

My owner growls and twirls his finger counterclockwise. The room plunges into darkness, the light from the star on the wall flickers, and once again the blue star peeks over the horizon. That's when it occurs to me that cycle, witnessing a star and the rising moons, is Tarak's alarm. Four times in a row we go through this and during the fifth cycle, when the room is bathed in soft blue light, Tarak gets out of bed, stomping about the room.

I stay hidden beneath the sheets, but I can't help laughing. From resetting the alarm several times to rushing about the room and grumbling, it's obvious that Tarak is not a morning alien.

"Thoth," he says, pulling back the sheet and exposing my head.

I keep my eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. He runs his fingers through my hair before rushing out the door.

Finally! I sit up in bed and the room is dark. I clap and the wall re-illuminates with the blue star and three moons, frozen on the wall.

I'm hungry, so I drop down from the bed and go to the corner where I have a blanket and a bowl filled with... I shudder. Tarak has filled my bowl with what looks like guinea pig pellets.

Be open-minded, Kayla.

I grab a pellet. It's brown and fits in my palm. I take a tiny lick and-ugh-the pellet tastes like sawdust. I can't eat this. I go to where I'd seen Tarak put the containers of berries, but no matter how much I knock or tap the wall, my berries stay hidden. Why won't these walls open for me?

My eyes go back to the chair. This is not a problem. I can just order some more berries. I grab the keyboard, except... The wall only has a picture of a star and moons. I need the food pictures. I do everything I saw my owner do before: I use the same motions, flicking my wrists and moving my hands. I try new things, growling like Tarak, and even clapping so that the wall flickers on and off, but still, this is not what I want. If only the page with all the pictures of food would reappear.

I am about ready to eat that bowl of guinea pig pellets when I notice the empty box from yesterday is still on the corner of my master's desk. I grab the carton, examining it. Numbers are on the bottom of the box.

Could these numbers be the key? I carefully tap the numbers into the keyboard, and...

What happens next, I do not expect. Berry-related pages appear on the wall. Some have big pictures of the berries with lots of glyphs that I don't understand. A map appears on one of the walls. On another wall is a berry carton, identical to what I had seen before. Finally! I use my hand motion to grab that one.

This page is so intuitive. Just like last time, it has a checkbox, so I click it. Once I'm on that page, it becomes even easier because more pages with fruit of assorted sizes and varied colors pop up on the wall. This is great; it's like shopping in a store that anticipates what I want next. When dozens of additional checkboxes appear, I go with it, since one can never have too much fruit. When what I can only assume is a delivery button appears, I hit that, too.

It doesn't take long-maybe the equivalent of half an hour-when the wall chimes. I use the same hand signal I have seen my master use, turning my fist clockwise, and the door opens.

A robot that only comes up to the height of my belly rolls into Tarak's apartment. This robot is adorable, with gigantic circles that resemble eyes. Whenever I blink at the robot, the robot's illuminated eyes flicker at me, almost as if the robot is blinking, too.

I'm so hungry I immediately remove a carton of berries from the robot's cart, throwing one of the berries into my mouth.

That robot beeps and grabs onto my box with a claw.