Happiness and Misadventures

Owned Sauria

Wikipedia’s entry about sauria gave me the idea to insert dinosaurs in a story for the very first time, and then… well, you’ll see.

Mike suddenly felt nostalgic about his last birthday; he perfectly recalled the moment he had received his father’s present. His parents and he were in the kitchen in their terraced house; it was Saturday morning, the sun was shining in the bright blue sky.

“Your grades were definitely better this semester. You finally earned this thing, young man!” When his dad stepped aside, there was a wrapped box on the table, slightly larger than their microwave. When the kid approached it, he immediately realized what it was: its corners were the ones he had seen countless times on the holographic TV. Also, a couple of friends of his showed him that very same shaped box when they got it. He had been wishing for it for so long! As he touched it, even though he expected it, he made a little jump as something moved inside.

“Go on!” his father invited. With trembling hands, Mike unwrapped his gift and revealed its contents: an iron cage with small, oblong holes all around, so thin that not even a finger could pass through. There were iron handles on two sides and on the top to lift it. On the front, there was a metal plate depicting a three-fingered footmark of a reptile. Below, the inscription “DynoTech”. On the right, a button emitted a blue light. The boy’s gaze was lost in wonder; he turned towards his parents, unable to speak a word, with almost teary eyes. At last, with a heavy breath, he pressed the blue toggle. A holographic image of a young man appeared a few inches over the cage, suspended midair. He wore a polo shirt, which had the same stitched logo as the metal plate. With a big smile on his face, he opened his arms boastfully, “Hi Mike! I’m Jim from DynoTech. All of us want to congratulate you on your fourteenth birthday! Aaand… for your new very special friend, of course!”

“The message is custom, it just cost a few hundred bucks more,” whispered his father, thinking he wouldn’t be heard. Mike’s mother had an apprehensive smile on her face. They were both almost fifty years old, but the expensive cosmetic microsurgery made them look like in their late twenties.

Jim continued, “This little guy is a Compsognathus longipes, which could seem tiny, but I assure you it has sharp tiny teeth, so always pay attention! Remember: it is a real dinosaur!” The video went on for a minute or two, explaining the necessary care the new pet needed. At the end, a tiny window, just two inches tall, opened on both sides of the cage to reveal its contents. The youngster kept jumping up and down, trying to peer inside. Eventually, his eyes widened and his jaw dropped: in the center, there was a quail-sized reptile, not dissimilar to a crocodile, but with much smoother dermis. Its neck and tail were very thin and long; and it was a biped, with two larger hind legs and shorter arms. It had sparse, tiny reddish feathers all over the body, and was all coiled on itself: the beast was clearly frightened.

Jim reappeared after a moment, “Isn’t it beautiful? It is a male. What will be its name?”

Mike looked up for a minute, thoughtful. “Compy!” he exclaimed, without too much fantasy. Nobody expected that, but the hologram reacted to the name. “Compy, you say? It’s very nice! So, let me implant a tiny chip in his neck –don’t worry, it won’t hurt him– with this information, just as with your other pets.” There was a buzz inside the cage. “Okay, done! Remember the recommendations, Mike, and enjoy your new friend.”

The blue light stopped pulsing and turned green, signaling that the cage was now unlocked. Mike’s mother immediately stepped forward, “Wait! Take it outside, or you’ll stain the marble floor.”

He didn’t mind her and pressed the button. It was a very special moment, his first contact with his own dinosaur — nothing else had ever mattered more. The cage door opened, and Compy looked at him with tiny, black terrified eyes. They just stood there for a few moments, staring each other.

While lost in that dreamy instant, he actually didn’t hear his father murmuring, super excited, “…It even reacted to the name… Totally worth the price!”

In the following months, the relationship between the two was… complicated. The dinosaur had been placed in a special electrical fence on the garden terrace, and Mike spent as much time as he could with it. He tried to teach it some tricks, like jumping or sitting on command, but with poor results. Compy didn’t like to be petted, let alone play ball like their old dog did. It was scared when the boy approached with some toys as his portable drone or his hoverboard. Soon he was perplexed about how playing with its new friend.

DynoTech assured that their dinosaurs were genetically accurate, but also rendered harmless towards humans. They had the fangs and sharp teeth everyone wanted to see, but the chip implanted in their head prevented them from attacking in any way humans and other pets, such cats and dogs. 100% guaranteed, or immediately refunded.

Because of that, the boy’s parents soon stopped to worry about the ancient reptile on their roof. They even automated the delivery of DynoTech’s special food, and after a couple of months the animal stopped receiving almost any attention.

Pet dinosaurs were a trend, an expensive one, and only the elite boys showed them off. It was cool to tell the others you owned a dinosaur… but it was boring as hell. It was just a matter of time before someone came up with a solution. At school, Mike heard for the first time about the newest thing: dinofights. Every Thursday, the boys gathered in an abandoned warehouse near the harbor, and forced their pet dinos fight against each other. They were genetically forced to avoid violence towards humans, but there were no restrictions on other dinosaurs.

After hearing about that, it wasn’t long before Mike sneaked outside, passing through the woods behind their house. He held the cage by the side grips — Compy had grown, it was now the size of a large chicken, and the metal thing felt heavier than when he first got it. He had clumsily disguised the cage with cardboard. At first the dino kept squeaking, scared, but after a few minutes it calmed down and curled itself on the bottom. The youngster went round the hill, passing through tall oak trees, and emerged in the suburbs. From there, the harbor was just a ten minutes walk.

The warehouse was owned by one of the teenagers’ fathers, and would have torn down the next year — there was plenty of time for their new entertainment. When they all arrived, most on hoverboards, they all slipped inside the building, and opened some beer cans. In the center of the room, Mike saw that two or three DynoTech fences, as the one installed on his terrace, had been modified in order to form a patched up ring where the animals fought. He saw some dried blood stains on the floor, and started feeling something was wrong about that. His friends had brought three other cages similar to his, and put them next to the electrical enclosure. Mike peered inside them, and suddenly felt sick: those animals were all compsognathi as his, but also completely different. They were full of scars, one was missing an eye, and another had its tail crooked in a terribly wrong way. They were angry and scared, and the first thing that came to his mind was that they needed a vet.

One cage was opened; the one-eyed dino was picked up by its owner, without fear, just as he lifted a chicken, and put inside the ring. “Come on, rookie. Let’s see what your dinosaur can do.” Mike was still sickened by his thoughts, and it took one second or two to realize he was referring to him. With trembling hands, he opened Compy’s cage, and saw his friend’s eyes full of terror. He hesitated, and his friends mocked him. ‘Boo-ooh, Mikey’s scared!’ Feeling dreadful sorry, he grabbed Compy and put it in the ring. The poor beast was confused, it ironically never saw another dinosaur. Its opponent seemed to ignore it, unwilling to fight, but one of the kids took a taser from his pocket and started zapping the fighters, first one and then the other. They jumped and squeaked, frightened and confused, as the small crowd incited them making animalistic sounds. Eventually, the one-eyed dinosaur dashed and snapped his jaws at a few millimeters from the other’s snout. Compy retreated, but the kid with the teaser couldn’t leave it alone.

“Stop it!” Mike shouted, but that just made them laugh louder. He tried to snatch the weapon from the kid’s hands, but the taller boy kept it out of reach. In the meanwhile, Compy had been hurt, there was blood on his neck. Mike panicked and stopped being lucid, his instinct prevailed. He kicked the kid with the taser in his balls. Hard. The boy made a feeble, high-pitched scream, and let the hardware fall on the ground. Mike immediately kicked it away, grabbed Compy, and almost threw it in the cage. In a few seconds, they were outside the building.

The boy was all nerves and felt sick, confused about what had just happened. He ran towards the woods, breathless, without looking back — nobody would follow him, but he was already thinking about the next day, at school. Better not going, for his own’s sake. As he took the tiny unpaved trail, he was about to stop to catch his breath when he stumbled upon a root, hidden by the fallen leaves. He tumbled over and lost grip on the handle. The cage rolled down a slope for twenty or thirty yards, and slammed on a tree. Mike stood up after a few moments, dizzy. He quickly checked if he was ok, then approached the cage. His eyes widened when he saw that the door was open, and the interior was all covered in red — there was no trace of the dinosaur.

While running among the trees and the immense beds of fallen leaves, for the first time in his life he truly understood the meaning of regret. He wanted to punch in the face his past self from two hours before so badly. He kept following blood traces left here and there. Compy had run away, and the woods were silent except for the wind and distant traffic. He had seen some red spots on the underbrush, but the last one had appeared ten minutes earlier; now, he was wandering without a clue. He shouted the dinosaur’s name dozens of times, but there was no response nor squeaks. Eventually, he sat heavily next to a tree, and started sobbing.

He was feeling awful, like the worst person in the world — even shittier than his friend with the taser. How could he possibly believe that dinofights could be fun? Did he even think? Now probably his pet was mortally wounded, if not dead yet. And it was all his fault.

While crying it out, he didn’t hear a slight movement on his left. A reptile was standing just fifty feet away, looking at him with attention. It wasn’t Compy, it was at least twice as big. After a few moments, the animal decided to approach. Then Mike heard its legs on the leaves, and moved his gaze. His heart skipped a beat when he saw that it was a totally different dinosaur, at least four feet long from nose to tail, with much sharper teeth and fangs. It was a velociraptor! The boy was about to scream, but there was a whistle, so the beast stopped and turned around. Mike stepped away from that large dino, both scared and surprised because they were unavailable — from DynoTech or any others. As far as he knew, the compsognathus was the only one for the public because basically harmless.

“Don’t be afraid, she’s very obedient,” a voice said. The youngster looked behind the tree he was sitting next to, and saw a tall man with a long brown beard approaching. He wore technical apparel, he might be a soldier, maybe a hunter… but with a dinosaur? Looking closer, Mike could see that he was holding another tiny dinosaur under his arm.

“Compy!” he exclaimed. It was unconscious, and the kid’s eyes widened.

“It’s yours, uh? He’s been through some adventures, I see… Don’t worry, I patched him up and gave him a mild tranquilizer. Wanna tell me what happened?” He was kind, and Mike felt he could trust this strange savior. The boy explained the whole story; in the meanwhile approached the fellow, and noticed that he had put a bandage on the dino’s wound.

After hearing all of it, the man replied, “You’re young, and we all made some mistakes.” He held the tiny dinosaur to the teenager. “What it counts is that you understand what you did. You don’t own animals. They can be your friends… if you’re worth.”

The boy looked down, feeling guilty for the poor beast in his arms. He couldn’t change the past, but surely he could provide Compy a better future.

“I— I think I got the lesson. I acted as an asshole. I shouldn’t have.”

“Yeah, that’s the point. Take care of your buddy, but don’t blame yourself too hard. Just don’t forget the past, or you might let both of you down again — and it’ll hurt much more.”

The man whistled, and the raptor approached them. Mike instinctively jumped back, but the bearded man put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Look, Nancy can be very sweet if you are nice to her.”

He gently took the boy’s hand and put in front of his companion, which was as large as a dog. The animal understood, and pushed her head under Mike’s palm. He was petting a velociraptor!

They wandered in the woods for a while, then the hunter –his name was Robert– guided him towards the trail leading home. They felt mutual sympathy, they both saw that encounter as fortunate. One learned an important lesson, and the other imparted an equally important message.

Before they parted ways, the bearded man said, “As you might have guessed, Nancy shouldn’t be here. I got her from a friend, I want to train her to hunt. You won’t tell anyone about us, right? I am convinced –no, I know– that dinosaurs can help us in many ways. We must be smart to understand how… and to respect them. Don’t forget to use your head, but always ask your heart first.”

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