He had to admit, the first evening of the morale-boosting and team-building trip hadn’t broken much ice, except the stuff that chilled drinks. After grilled food and cocktails in the cabin he shared with the men, his folks had gone on drinking at the poolside–none getting rowdy, not even red-faced Neil–but despite being socially lubricated by alcohol they remained on edge. They kept looking warily at him and at each other, meanwhile drinking and smoking and holding guns to the sides of their heads as if about to commit suicide at any moment: a typical work party. In his mind’s eye, he saw Marjorie’s well-manicured red nails gripping her .22 Barketta, its muzzle lost in her lush red locks. Tom’s thick fingers and chunky gold class ring on the handle of his 9mm Ironton. Nervous Neil steadying his Fortier revolver in one hand and twirling a glass in the other, a Last One brand cigarette clenched in his mouth.
Were the guns loaded? Maybe. His, within easy reach beside him, was not, but the ammo was a few steps away, by his bed in the men’s cabin. It had to be nearby and readily available if he was to obtain that voluptuous feel of release, that liberation from life’s woes, that a gun can give. Such comfort was stronger than booze, more powerful than nicotine, and like those substances, it delivered a buzz. A compact gun was as easy on the hand as a cig or a glass. What’s more, thanks to the passage of House Bill 7983 decades ago, self-directed firearms were perfectly legal. A lot of people had come to enjoy this right.
The pistols bothered Dugan: they were indicators of low morale. To see his most productive people, himself included, comforting themselves by pressing a solid .22 or 9mm against their throbbing temples, or keeping one close to hand, was distressing. Worse, everyone carried guns now: students in class as young as eighteen and the elderly in retirement homes, doctors and lawyers in offices, and truck drivers and sanitation workers on the street. All went about with a means of self-destruction within reach, filling a strong emotional need. He considered gun-grasping to be a sign of widespread sickness and of a less than fully productive workforce. But only Dugan and a few psychologists who posted warnings online seemed to notice or care.
Dugan held the snout of his 9mm, a nickel-plated Rogers, to his sideburn, for sensual comfort, and to delay joining the others in the cabin. After toweling off in their individual rooms they would return to the pool in casual evening garb, guns in hand of course–except perhaps alcoholic Linda who was trying to kick the hardware habit if not the booze–to socialize for another hour or two before turning in.
Tomorrow, after breakfast at the hotel restaurant, he would lead his guests along a hiking trail through caverns and woods to a scenic lake for boating or fishing, but how to fill the rest of this evening? He had brought along poker chips and cards, a few classic movies, and even a pair of bongos to tap on and pass back and forth–yes bongos, what had he been thinking? This was no hootenanny, and he was Chief Morale Officer, not a bandleader. Well, let his people entertain themselves for a bit, while he enjoyed the full moon coming into view overhead, and the now peaceful pool within its rectangle of electric lights. There was also his wine to be sipped. Who knows, maybe his absence would boost everyone’s morale.
Someone or something jumped in the water beside him, splashing his face, his glass, and dousing the gun beside him. The submerged creature surfaced revealing an almost human face with a crooked grin and oddly sleek head, calling to mind a great eel. Dugan knew he was one of the Evolving Ones recently welcomed into society. He noticed a family of three Evolving Ones occupying a cabin nearby. With the exception of the small piglike animal, they led around on a leash, all three Evolving Ones appeared to be two-armed, two-legged hominids attired in the same style of clothes Dugan and his party wore. Up close, in the growing darkness, this adult male in swim trunks resembled an upright eel–a friendly toothless eel.
“Eli,” said the Evolving One, offering a humanoid hand with a trace webbing linking its four fingers. Was the webbing coming or going? Dugan wondered. He’d heard the Evolving Ones could change their appearance like that.
“Dugan,” he replied, placing his glass at poolside beside the gun and taking the webbed hand in his. It felt like a living fish, cold, slimy, and prickly. This was his first face-to-face with an Evolving One. He didn’t know what to expect.
“Lovely evening,” said the Evolving One. The warm water came up to their chests. He cast a glance at Dugan’s damp gun an arm’s length away. “Thinking of shooting yourself this fine night?”
“Yes, I always am. Suicide goes well with eerie moonlight. I wish I could stop lugging that thing around, it’s a nasty habit.” Dugan regretted the men had carried the cooler inside with them, or he would have offered the Evolving One a beer, whom he saw eyeing his nearly empty glass. He wondered what Evolving Ones drank. “Does my little gun there offend you?”
“I find the pistol a bit retrograde,” said Eli. “My people once held weapons to their heads too, for the relief in it. Centuries ago we used the same old-fashioned firearms you still employ, but recently those gave way to modern electronic and laser devices that are less bulky and intrusive. They could be clipped to one’s hair or collar and activated with a button, destroying only the owner. The consolation that wearing one gave was immeasurable. I may still have one or two of them at home.”
“Self-detonators, the new wave of potential suicide implementation,” Dugan said with mock approval. “I’m sure such items are in the works here, sad to say. Where does it end? My theory is that available suicide promotes actual suicide. Suicides are up all across society, mass shootings too. Life is cheap.”
“With luck, you’ll evolve beyond all that despair and slaughter, as we Evolving Ones are beginning to do. We’re almost there. Meanwhile, I know of a nice alternative to guns and personal detonators.”
Dugan was certain he saw an instantaneous change in Eli’s physiognomy, the eel-like face elongating and roughening into a toothier alligator-mien. He watched as the smoother and more blunted eel returned to the fore, the harmless fish replacing the fierce reptile in an instant. Beneath those fleeting shifts, the almost human face remained visible.
“Let me show you something,” said Eli. “It’s what got me through each day until I became reconciled to life, as I am now, and as many of us Evolving Ones are now. It’s much more satisfactory than a gun or a detonator.”
Opening his left hand, he exposed a curled up creature of some sort covering his palm. Its segments of off white rings stretched out, and its many hairy legs writhed sluggishly. “Say hello to Jiggs, my critch.”
“That’s hideous,” Dugan said, recalling the leashed pig-like creature he’d glimpsed earlier. No telling what sort of beasts the Evolving Ones consorted with. “And you carry that on you?”
“Oh yes, everywhere I go–that is until recently, and now just on occasion, as you can see. Don’t worry, critches are perfectly harmless unless you pinch or slap them, and I’m sure you won’t do that to Jiggs. Even if you abused him, you would only receive a slight nip or scratch in retaliation. Here, wildlife experts have found them free of disease and no threat to the ecosystem. Critches secrete nothing and inject nothing, are free of bacteria and viruses, and subsist mainly on water, even chlorinated water. Jiggs is having a grand time in the pool. Add a few scraps of leftovers to his water–garbage, that is, but nothing too spicy–and Jiggs is perfectly content. Critches are approved by your Department of Health, too, for the reasons I mentioned.”
“Are they now?” Dugan said, controlling his repulsion.
“Here, take him in your hand. Better, put him on your shoulder. He likes shoulders, a high roost gives him a more comprehensive view.”
Dugan, still reluctant to join his coworkers, did just that, and placed the calmy writhing critch on his left shoulder, where he sometimes rested his gun. He felt the animal’s tentacles secure a soft grip on him, and tried hard to rein in his disgust. Eli hadn’t mentioned it, but Jiggs smelled rancid, like raising the lid off a dumpster.
“Relax, Jiggs likes you already,” said Eli. “He’s a receptive parasite, or better say a pet, and will adjust to your lifestyle and devote himself to your welfare in a heartbeat, though he’s never encountered you or any human before. Understand, though, that he won’t evolve with you, should you change form as we Evolving Ones do. Critches are lower lifeforms that haven’t altered over millennia, and may never alter, but they’re adept at attuning themselves to intelligent hosts or owners.” Dugan shivered in discomfort, Eli continued, “A few seconds more and you’ll feel the incredible relief of a critch, much more soothing than a gun to the head.”
“I don’t see how,” Dugan said, still wanting to brush the critch off him to suppress his quivering with disgust. He didn’t want Jiggs to sting or bite him or whatever it did when offended, so he remained motionless. “The whole comfort of a gun is it can remove one from this…vale of despair… any time one chooses. How can Jiggs be a substitute for that, if, as you say, he’s harmless?”
“That’s the magic of a critch,” Eli said. “The pure revulsion one derives from his loathsome presence does the trick. You accept ugly Jiggs, you accept ugly life: simple as that. If that sounds impossible to you –and I’m sure it does –remember that Jiggs is impossibly ugly. Now, stand still and let Jiggs do his work, you’re shaking too much. You’ll find he’s much better consolation than a gun–and more intoxicating too, headier than any drug, or the wine I see you’re enjoy.”
Dugan tried staying calm as the whitish segmented thing gripped his shoulder. He felt only revulsion–a spreading euphoria took its place as if he were working on a bottle of pricey merlot.
“I’ve been addicted to Jiggs for some years now,” Eli went on, “and have put away all my firearms and explosives thanks to his beneficent morale-boosting, I suppose you might call it. I’m certain without Jiggs by my side, I would have died of despair, or actually blown my head off, long before this moonlit evening.” He reached out and gave Jiggs an affectionate stroke with his fingertip. Jiggs responded by flexing his revolting tentacles.
“Jiggs’s ugliness saved you?”
“You said it,” said Eli. “Such ugliness as Jiggs’s is truly life-preserving.” Eli’s features underwent another transformation. His face turned shark-like, massive and unreasoning, and his body became an aquatic missile. The change lasted a second–the milder Eli stood before him, up to his hominid chest in water, his plump eely lips curved in a smile.
“I want you to have Jiggs as your own. Take him off my hands, won’t you?” Eli said.
This was too much, and something in the Evolving One’s jelly-lipped smile suggested deception.
“You’re joking,” Dugan said.
“Not at all, I’m evolving past my need of him, you humans won’t for hundreds of years to come–if you follow the path of us Evolving Ones. You need Jiggs more than I do now. Don’t worry, he’s used to changing owners. I inherited him from an elderly female librarian of my acquaintance who lived alone. Jiggs sat in her lap as she read through the night. She claimed he turned the pages of her book for her. She’s the one who named him, I suppose taking the name from some old novel, and he was her critch for years–her only one, though some Evolving Ones keep colonies of the critters, as we used to before our latest and perhaps final evolutionary phase. Thanks to Jiggs, she put aside the head-vaporizing laser adornment that was such a consolation to her, until she got so old she no longer feared or resented life. Then she gave Jiggs to me. She lived comfortably for another year after that, no longer tormented by life.”
“And you are no longer tormented by life?”
“Correct, but not because I’m elderly and prepared to die. I’m no doddering librarian.” He gave a low chuckle that sounded like water gurgling in a drain. “But I’m reaching a state of development, more so each day, where life no longer distresses me. On the contrary, I act more and more out of a blind will or compulsion to satisfy myself and perform what I used to consider questionable and even objectionable deeds, without a care about how I may affect others. I act for my own gain, and that’s all. Life now pleases me.”
Jiggs had left Dugan’s shoulder and crawled along the poolside. It caressed his gun with loathsome feelers, and knocked over his wineglass, which broke against the tiles staining them red.
“Let me think on it.” Dugan enjoyed the contact with Jiggs and felt stronger with it on his shoulder. The situation was unheard of… “I’m terrible with pets, the ones I’ve kept ended up getting on my nerves. In fact, I should get back to my cabin. I’m having a get-together with some coworkers, and I’ve been out here soaking myself long enough.”
“I’d like you to stay a while longer.”
Eli reached in the water and grabbed Dugan’s left thigh, lifting it so Dugan’s bent knee rose out of the water. Dugan stood unsteadily on one leg, trapped in the Evolving One’s humiliating embrace. Then, as he stared dumbly at the Evolving One’s benign eel-like face, the shark-visage took command. He beheld a predatory life form that thrived without compunction or compassion. A moment later the humanoid-eel returned, then the shark came again with rows of eager teeth. Eli’s appearance wavered back and forth between the two forms, as if he couldn’t decide which to claim.
Jiggs climbed back on Dugan’s shoulder, distracting him. The critch extended its tentacles and feelers as if for flight, in a hideous ball of hairy, scaly projections that looked like an exploded star. As the drug-like embrace of the creature seeped through him, Dugan found his gun within the critch’s many folds and grasped the handle. The shark-Eli lunged at him, and he pointed the weapon and fired. The gun had been loaded and a dead humanoid floated in the water, his evolution halted.
The shot brought Dugan’s coworkers rushing from their cabins and over to the pool. He greeted them with a laugh.
“Have I got a story for you,” he said as the critch reduced to its normal size on his shoulder. A lively, happy Dugan began to tell it.