By Devan Vanderpoel, Year 12
So Long, and Thanks for all the Carrots
Julietta Hoffman had always been a strong student and a perfect child. She was born into a home of hard workers and was instructed from the day she learnt to walk in all the fine arts of the studious life her parents had envisaged for her. It was rather simple really: School, Harvard, Internship at the Firm, more Harvard, job at the Firm, relationship with an intelligent convenient man, marriage with said convenient man, and family, all followed by the eventual prosperous retirement, would be the only course suitable for a young lady of as such fortuitous talents as the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Hoffman―because anyone worth a damn knew the Hoffmans.
Henry had no last name because he was a pearly white, brown-speckled hamster living in Julietta’s room until two nights beforehand. Nobody had noticed he was even gone for the last two days. Julietta, of course, never looked in that corner of her room because she was hard at work. She had test on Moles at the end of the week that she was to get an A on. Regardless, the cage was automatic, a state-of-the-art Eye-Cage V, so she never needed to take care of Henry, or even pay any attention to him, because he was fed and cleaned by the brilliant designs that made life so much easier for Julietta, as she had lots of work to do. Nevertheless, Henry lived well in his automatic cage, under the sweet and gentle artificial care of mechanical life. In fact, he barely noticed the difference. He was only slightly terrified of the sharp, loud mechanical grunts of levers and devices as they scuttled and preyed behind the walls. He only slightly cowered away in his little hut while the torrential waves crashed through his home and swept away everything he knew, or when his only security, his wheel, lit up and glared at him through the night. He was only slightly dazed when emerging to a shiny clean cage, only slightly afraid of the brushes that might reemerge any moment, and only very, very slightly lonely.
But where was Henry? Julietta looked for some time after the family handyman, a hard-working Filipino called Milo―he ran two separate jobs when out of the house―noticed that poor Henry was no longer in his brilliantly designed cage. He told Julietta right away, but as she had work to do, she asked Milo to continue the search, who was always so inclined to spend time and energy for Julietta―who had so much work to do. Thus, Milo spent his Saturday, and his Sunday, and countless hours during the Mondays, Tuesdays, and other days that followed, until it had been a full month that Henry had been missing. Julietta, perched on her auto-massage working chair, was filled with enormous concern, so she insisted that Milo not give up.
On the Friday of the new month, Julietta decided that all the worry, the abiding anguish that had been eating at her, was simply too much to bear. Henry must be found. The thought of Henry, all alone in the world, filthy, possibly hurt, and without his brilliantly designed cage! Oh, imagine the state of poor Henry! No automatic food dispensers! No gentle brushes and warm cleaning water! No comforting lights! The despair he must feel in such a dark and desolate world! But, most of all, how he must long for a caring, kind, and attentive owner… Julietta could not do nothing.
So she called for Milo to come and meet her in her room.
“Milo” she said diligently, addressing the short man facing her with black near-mushroom hair and rough features. His worker’s outfit was grimy from garden work and sweat reflected the natural light from the window. “You have always been a good handyman”. “I could name any single thing in this house, and chances are you’ve fixed it.” Milo, uneasy but always receptive of praise, nodded with a smile. “But there is one thing I need fixed above all.”
“Maam’, Henry has been missing for over a month…” said Milo, knowing what he was to hear. He spoke awkwardly and stood likewise, one hand grasping the opposite shoulder.
“Exactly! Henry is out there, all alone.” She agitatedly waved her arms towards the window. “We have to find him.”
“I’ve been looking for a month. Maam’, what else can I do? How much more―”
“If Henry escaped his cage, then where would he go first?”
“Julietta…”
“Think Milo. Think. So we’ve checked the house and the garden. But what about the neighbors?”
“No, we haven’t tried that yet.” Milo figured he was being paid for this anyway.
“So there we go! We’ll try the Beckinsons’ first, then Haley’s house. I’ll ask Haley, she likes me. You go for the Beckinsons.’”
“Understood maam. I’ll look right away.’” he said as Julietta left the room. Inwardly, Milo pondered how one can tell a young girl that her pet was most likely dead. If Henry was not so fluffy, Julietta would be asking him to kill him… After all, hamsters are rodents. So why does fluffiness save him from the hatred we give rats and mice? Rats spread disease, but so can hamsters. Rats are ugly, they have crooked teeth. But we adore ugly dogs. Milo concluded that it is human nature to love things that are fluffy and despise those that have crooked teeth. In reality, he only sought to change the subject.
He sighed. Poor little Henry. On the numerous occasions during which the lamp in Julietta’s bedroom failed to respond to orders, or Julietta felt that the massage option on her bed no longer pressed firmly enough, or the air conditioning made some noise, he liked to observe little Henry run on his wheel, that is until the wheel lit up and little Henry flees. He had never seen a hamster before coming to work at the Hoffmans’; he thought they were plump mice. How did he even leave the cage?, he thought, suddenly perplexed. His eyes darted to the thing. It was about the size of a duffel bag, compact, secure, full of lights and buttons, and decorated to the brim with every shade of pink and purple imaginable, as was the rest of the room. Inside, it was your average automatic hamster cage, immaculate and mechanical. Milo leaned forward to inspect further. It was a simple design, as mundane as any hamster cage. Milo’s eyes explored the layer of straw strewn over the floor, then moved towards the opaque metal food and drink dispenser, two fake rocks, and finally, Henry’s home. It was a plastic structure meant to replicate a tropical wooden hut. Once a week, it was lifted by mechanical fingers to be cleaned, giving it a perpetual sheen.
Milo sighed and sat down. He was tasked with finding a hamster that had been missing for a whole month. Talk about mission impossible… Oh well, money is money.
Suddenly, the main lights on the roof of the cage lit up, indicating 6 PM. Milo shrugged and figured that he might as well unplug the machine, seeing as its owner was long gone, so he leaned over towards the plug. That was when he noticed it. On the other side of Henry’s hut, facing the purple wall, something was etched into the plastic…
So long, and thanks for all the carrots!
On the wall behind, concealed by the cage, was a rough, hamster-sized hole. Milo, who had fixed an issue with the heating system in the room a few years back, knew exactly where it led…
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Nibbling a hole through the plastic floor of the cage was easy. The hole in the wooden wall, however, was utter hell to make. It took nearly two horrible, teeth-shattering, bone-breaking months for terrified and sleep-deprived Henry to force his way through. Once into the interior of the walls, it was a straight scuttle to freedom, or so he thought. He had never really planned further than the wall, as that was all he knew. Suddenly the vision of fresh, free air, dancing blades of vibrant green grass, swirling wind heaving colourful autumn leaves, and the wild and wonderful complexity of natural life became even more distant than ever. In the cage, he was lonely and afraid. At that moment, in the crushing darkness of the Hoffman’s ventilation shaft, Henry was terrified. His whiskers curled upwards. Involuntary squeaks filled the darkness as he scuttled slowly forwards. As time passed and his fears gripped more tightly, he moved faster. And faster. Soo, he was scampering through the shaft, but it never ended, until it did. A vague light approached him. The closer he got, more his dreams of freedom reemerged. But alas, he reached a silver grate. On the other side was the world he longed for… He pushed. He nibbled. He chewed and fought viciously, but his attempts were worth nothing. He could not break down metal. Henry was alone, miserable, terrified, and hungry, and he would remain so for the rest of his life. He settled down, staring at the blur of greenery through the grate, and imagined a life in another world.
For over a month, Henry stayed there, returning only overnight to his mechanical cage for food. A deep and desolate depression had taken hold in him.
One evening, at 6:05, the grate began to shake.
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Milo unscrewed the cage and lifted it, revealing Henry, dirty, scrawny, but alive. Pity overwhelmed him. “Oh you poor thing!” He reached to hold him. But something stopped him.
For a brief moment, somehow, understanding flowed through both creatures. To the outside eye, it was really really strange. But within Milo and Henry, it went something like this:
“Please… I just want to know what it feels like. Just for a few seconds, before you take me back.” squealed Henry.
“I don’t understand. Know what what feels like?”
“That.” motioned Henry, toward the garden. “I want to feel free. I want to feel the grass, the air, the sun, the shade, colors! I want to drink fresh water from a cold stream, bathe in warm sunlight, kiss the wind! I have lived trapped in a machine my entire life… I cannot bear it any longer! I am unloved, uncared for, and forgotten in that thing.”
“But Henry, the cage gives you everything you need. It washes, feeds, and warms you. It harbors you and keeps you safe from predators. Whenever you are sick, it heals you, and you never need to clean your home! You live in a perfect home, Henry. Why would you want to leave? The outside world is harsh and cruel. Beasts will do nothing but hunt you, and humans, driven by greed and the temptations of machinery and money, will do far worse. You’re a little creature, in a big, bad world. Come, think about this.”
Henry hesitated, but looked up, whiskers pointed in defiance. “What do you do?” he asked.
“I am a handyman. Why do you ask?”
“For the Hoffmans’?”
“Yes.”
“Do you enjoy what you do?”
“It pays. Who cares?”
“Is it your dream to fix walls, phones, and toilets? Is it your passion to dig plants and clean windows? I don’t think so. In fact, I think you are in a much wider and far more compact cage than mine. I might be a little hamster, and the world may be cruel, but what life is there for me here? I would rather clean my own fur, find my own food, protect my own whiskers, if it meant that I could die a free hamster.” So Henry bravely leapt from the vent and scuttled towards the trees. Milo let him go. He never knew why. He told Julietta he was probably dead and went back to his job, a little bothered, but he figured: money is money.
