Chapter 1
Franklin Paris was awoken every morning either gently or harshly. A gentle morning was when his alarm clock would go off to prepare him for the hardships of the day. The harsh morning was Martian’s bark echoing through his home when outside creatures would try to enter. Martian was an animal, and the only animal that Paris was able to stand. Additionally, he never saw the dog as an animal. He called him Martian because he felt that his friend must have come from the planet Mars: to protect him from the inhabitants of the Earth. A skill he was able to do very well on mornings like today when a small deer entered the Paris house. The deer galloped out the open door frightened off by Martian’s threat. Hearing his hairy alarm clock, Paris quickly opened his eyes, put on his glasses, and checked the time. He had four hours before he had to go in for work, just enough time to eat and get ready. It took only thirty minutes to get to his work place, but there were always several factors he had to take into account. First, the time spent slowly avoiding small animals running around on the side walk. Second, waiting until carnivorous predators were out of sight before continuing in a specific direction. And the last and most important one, making sure that there were no animals trapped somewhere in his home, or he would be arrested for breaking one of the Pacheco Cruelty Laws; stating, that any animal held in captivity, regardless of whether party’s intentions are good, will be prosecuted under penalty of law.
Throwing down his collapsible ladder, Paris descended from his twenty foot high bunk bed to the ground below. Once Paris reached the floor, Martian washed his face with saliva to further wake him up. After calming Martian down, Paris rubbed his finger on one of the steel poles holding up the bunk to check the layers of non-toxic slip gel coating. After seeing that the gel was still good, Paris moved on. He did not bother to check the aroma sticks placed on top of the bunk because he had just bought those yesterday.
The house that Paris lived in was fairly large, which meant more room to avoid animals if they were ever in his home. In the kitchen, the cupboard had no doors so all the foods and dishes were in plain sight. There was no refrigerator due to the risk of something sneaking into the frozen coffin. Plus, fridges required lots of power from obsolete power outlets which were recalled when too many animals were found dead having chewed through the electrical cables. So, many house hold items were wireless to insure animal safety. Even ceiling lamps ran on batteries. It was like living in a house where an Amish and a Futurist fought over decorative design.
Paris entered his kitchen with Martian following behind and grabbed one of his food spheres. He entered a complex number into the keypad, located on one side of the sphere, which then unlocked the device. When the side door of the sphere was opened, cold air escaped. Inside the sphere was breads, vegetables, and fruits; the only acceptable consumable foods under the Pacheco Cruelty Laws. Paris pulled two plates out from the cupboard and then chopped up some food serving both himself and Martian. Martian normally had smaller portions because most of the time he would feed off the rodents that would try to sneak into Paris’s home. It was a mutualistic relationship for both man and dog; Paris had someone to keep the animals out of his house, and Martian had someone to take care of him and provide shelter.
While eating his breakfast, Paris started to hallucinate. One of many, visions he would use to escape the horrid world in which he lived. They were never triggered by anything specific; no drug of any kind. This particular vision inspired him to take his piece of bread and remove the crust. He then cleared off the fruit on his plate to make room for the long strands of crust which he carefully lay on his plate to resemble some kind sizzling food from his past. Next, he took the inner parts of the bread and chopped them up into little chunks that looked like glops of yellow. Once the pieces were placed on their assigned areas, the plate became warm. The mashed-up bread and strips of crust now took on the shape of an old childhood memory: bacon and eggs. Something that his mother use to make for him every day for breakfast when he was a child. Oh, how he loved this meal. Young Franklin would never get sick of eating those two foods in the morning because mom was such a creative individual. Some days, she would make the eggs sunny side up sprinkling pieces of bacon bits and seasonings over the meal. She would then call her creation “The Milky Way Galaxy” telling Franklin that the seasonings over the eggs were sun spots on the sun, and the white yolk was the rest of the galaxy with the bacon bits as distant stars.
“Eat up, my young astronaut,” she said with the biggest smile on her face, and Franklin would always reply with an “I love you mommy” before taking his journey through space.
Some days, Franklin’s mother would make omelets and coat them with bacon chili saying, “Eat up, my little cowboy.” Other days, she would hard boil the eggs and wrap them in Canadian bacon saying, “Eat up, Dudley-Do-Right.” He loved every single art piece his mom made for him. However, young Franklin’s favorite meal, which his mother would surprise him with every once in a while, was “The Sunny Beach.” His mother would scramble the eggs, melt some shredded cheese on top, make the bacon nice and crispy, and place some blueberry jelly in the middle. The look on Franklin’s face when his mother would surprise him with this feast was one of pure happiness and love. Mother would kiss him on the forehead, sit down at the table, and watch him eat without saying her usual “Eat Up.” It was too special for her to say anything; she just wanted to see Franklin enjoy his favorite breakfast meal.
Afterwards, she would place her hand on Franklin and tell him: “Now that you have had a sunny breakfast, make sure the rest of your day is just as bright. I love you my son.”
Young Franklin felt his mother’s hand on his lap as he stared at his breakfast. He turned to greet the hand with an “I love you mommy.” But when the boy looked for his mother, all he saw was a giant dog in her place. The bacon and eggs quickly transformed back into pieces of bread, and young Franklin quickly grew up to become Mr. Paris again. The vision was over.
Paris was very sad and angry to be brought back into this terrible reality; a reality that would not allow a mother to cook bacon for her son because it was from the belly of a poor, defenseless pig. Not even eggs were allowed to be eaten even though not all eggs carry the unborn fetuses of little chicks waiting to be hatched.
“It’s a gateway food,” those idiots would tell him, “You can develop a taste for chicken from eating eggs.” This logic even caused many to fight against vegan meals that tried to resemble the taste of meat. “In order to properly train society to forget about the past, we must erase from their memory the feeling of tasting flesh,” they would say.
“Mankind's so stupid,” Paris would say.
Although angry, Paris did not take his aggression out on his friend Martian. He knew that the dog was just worried about his health after noticing Paris hadn’t moved or eaten for some time. Paris patted Martian on the head and went over to the television to see if something could help ease his mind. When Paris turned on the wireless TV, two humans appeared sitting at a table across from each other. The picture quality was very weak; most, if not all, radio and television towers had to be shut down due to the electrical danger that animals could suffer. So, a large majority of radio waves are now being sent from the newly constructed hover saucers floating above. Electronic devices of all kinds still work like they did in the past. The only downside is that the world reverted back to its lost phone calls, slow internet speeds, and snowy TV shows, at least for the lower class. The upper classes, on the other hand, that are able to live in the hover saucers never have such problems because they are so close to saucer antennas. Paris thought about the upper class luxury of having a clear TV signal while watching the program.
“Look,” said one of the TV people, “We have already made great progress in getting the world to recognize animals as our equals. It’s now time to apply this to all sentient beings.”
“But what you propose,” interjected the other person, “is not economically, socially, and, dare I say, ethically possible. Every nation had a hard time adjusting to the new laws and stipulations that were put in place to
