by Tiffany Chiang
“Meow." No, I must have been hearing things. Maybe I didn’t get enough sleep yesterday. Maybe I should consider eating breakfast from now on. Maybe I should get that overdue medical checkup. "Meow, meow." My head shot up. I definitely wasn’t hallucinating. Since when did we have a cat in our lab? I glanced over the top of my computer and saw the assistant facing me with a sheepish grin. Okay, what did we have here? My curiosity got the better of me and I got up to take a look at his screen. He was testing a screen saver by Petz, Inc. There in the middle of his screen, was a cartoon cat running all over his desktop. I saw him feed, brush, spray, take photos, and even change the color of the cat. There were also toys in one corner, and the cat chased a metal ring around the screen. Later, when the assistant called up some lab work to finish, the cat quietly went to sleep. Cute, I thought. The only thing was, these "Catz” had to be “fed” on a daily basis - otherwise they turned mean, or might even die. They have “Dogz”, too, the assistant said - did I want one? No thank you, I didn*t think I was ready for a commitment yet, even with a computerized pet. “How about these?” he asked, and sheep started dropping all over the screen. These sheep jumped, bounced, ate flowers, took showers, rode rockets, and interfered with every command on the computer, exhibiting their existence in the most annoying way possible. They also bleated disconsolately if you picked them up (with the mouse) and threw them out of the way. Like real pets, it was better to put up with them, unless you planned to exterminate them permanently from your computer. Frankly, I wondered why these sheep were allowed to frolic around in the first place. The professor walked in. The assistant guiltily tried to turn off all the screen savers on his computer, but the professor had already caught a glimpse anyway. There was a tense moment of silence. Finally, the professor said, “Could you install that in my computer?” a
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May 2024
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