The Fledgling

I closed the door behind me a heartbeat before the storm broke. The proprietor of the pet shop glanced up from his book and gave me a half-smile. Leaning over the ebony counter he looked for all the world like some Dickensian character out of his rightful time. Truth to tell, the shop itself seemed anachronistic and unreal: a musty, cluttered labyrinth of cages and tanks, smells and noises, most of it enshrouded by oblique shadows that the shop's undependable light did not penetrate. Attempting to ignore the slight unease I felt at not being able to discover the light source, I returned the proprietor's half-smile with a  half-smile of my own.

"You look like a discerning gentleman," he said as he came around the counter.

"Well, I..."

"Then come! I know the perfect pet for a gentleman such as yourself." He then led me in silence through twisting aisles of reptiles and rodents to a dimly lit recess on the far side of the room. I was surprised how long his shop was. It seemed so small from the doorway.

We stood before a faded tapestry, its slight, slow rustling hinting at a room behind it. The indistinct figures, in dreamlike movement, reminded me of some episode from Dante, although for the life of me I couldn't recall the scene.

In front of the tapestry, draped by a heavy sheet, stood our objective. The proprietor sighed, gave me another half-smile and ceremoniously withdrew the cloth, revealing a large and seemingly ancient birdcage. I studied its sole occupant in amazement.

The proprietor regarded me for a moment and then asked, "Well, sir, what do you think?"

"It's... it's rather ugly, don't you think?"

"Well, it is just a fledgling."

"Will it become better looking or will it always look like... this?"

"What, sir, is ugliness, really, but beauty misapprehended or out of its proper place? Why, even the most noted Greek ornithologists cannot agree whether, as an adult, it is beautiful or grotesque."

"Well, it's certainly ugly now. What is it called?"

"Its scientific name is something like 'Harpyia Celaeno.' To tell the truth," he smiled oddly, "I can't recall its name right now."

"Has the breed been domesticated long?"

"'Domesticated'? Hmm! Has it ever been domesticated? But its breed does have a long and far-flung history that I believe a fine gentleman such as yourself would find quaint."

"Oh? Do tell."

"Have you ever heard of Ralph Albert Blakelock?"

"Wasn't he the creator of old shows like 'This is Your Life' and 'Truth or Consequences'?"

"Blakelock was an artist, died in 1919. He went insane. Added to this misfortune, he fell into the machinations of a con artist. Using Blakelock, she became rather wealthy even as the artist's family struggled to make ends meet. I knew his family, although not well. But I knew them well enough to know their plight. I gave them this one's grandmother as a pet in the hopes it might give them a small amount of cheer. Not long after, on a busy city street in broad daylight, the con artist herself went insane, irredeemably insane. I believe she was institutionalized for the rest of her life."

"So the breed's history goes back to around the time of the Great War?"

"Oh! It goes much further back than that! I can show you this one's pedigree. Most ancient, most ancient, indeed!"

"No. No, thank you. All our avian friends are, well, messy creatures, and this one seems even more so."

"Then perhaps I can interest you in something else. Of course you've heard of Edgar A. Poe."

"Sure. Didn't he direct some Vincent Price movies?"

The proprietor did not reply but instead pulled back the tapestry. A breath of strangely scented air caressed us. "This," he said, "is where I keep Poe's imp of the perverse."

"Another bird?"

"More a primate I would say, if anything. If the fledgling does not appeal to you, perhaps Poe's imp will be more to your liking." 

From the now open room I heard the sound of something stirring in the shadows. I hesitated at the threshold as a monstrous peal of thunder shook the pet shop to its foundation.