Four Patsies, Zero Regrets: A Utilitarian Verdict

The box arrived, and the scent was all wrong. Not the promising cardboard-and-fish-oil aroma of a proper delivery, but the sterile, plasticky scent of… disappointment. My human, with that hopeful glint in her eye she gets before introducing a new toy destined for the under-the-sofa graveyard, pulled them out. Four of them. Small, silent, and staring with unnervingly serene expressions. She called them her "new little helpers." I called them The Council. For days, The Council sat on the mantelpiece, their vinyl skin gleaming in the afternoon sun, their painted-on eyes following my every move. They judged my napping technique, my pouncing form, my very existence. The small human, a visiting creature known as "Niece," would occasionally take one down, wrap it in a scrap of cloth, and whisper nonsense to it. I watched from my perch on the armchair, unimpressed. This was not play. This was a tedious rehearsal for servitude, a skill my humans had already perfected in my name. One evening, during my customary 3 a.m. patrol of the silent house, I found one of them—the one with the darkest skin and kindest painted smile—had been left on the floor. It was a clear breach of protocol. I nudged it with my nose. It was solid, unyielding. I batted it with a soft paw, my claws carefully retracted. It simply rolled onto its side, its diaper crinkling faintly. Then, an idea, brilliant and devious, sparked in my mind. This was not a companion. This was an alibi. The next morning, the precariously balanced porcelain bird was shattered on the floor. My human gasped. I, however, was curled up asleep on the other side of the room, the picture of innocence. And who was lying next to the ceramic wreckage, looking utterly guilty with its blank, unblinking stare? A member of The Council. They were perfect. Not as toys, heavens no. But as silent scapegoats, as my own personal patsies. They could stay. They were, in their own useless way, quite constructive after all.