Manoset

He was a manoset: an anomalously mammalous amalgam,

parthenogenetically conceived, whose DNA proceeded

from assiduous recombination of the genes of marmoset

and lemur, homo sapiens, house cat and some new eely

species of the rat which snaked mellifluously into, up

and down, behind, around no matter what impediment of tree

or rock or armored truck or lock it found. The peculiar mix

of its constituent genetics brought it to an unexampled brink:

for one thing, it could think as slinkily as it could slink.

Features of its face resembled those of Edgar Allan Poe:

somehow conveyed Poe’s poignant mystery and flow.

There was, in short, no way one could ignore the glorious

abilities, the rich assembly of traits of this odd manoset.

What’s more, it made the perfect pet. As the lab’s presiding

scientist well knew – a scientist whose brilliant head had not

just been the one which led the team of his assistants to apply

impenetrable chemical equations to the strict regimes

without which such phenomena as manosets could never be –

his head became the sole vicinity whereon the manoset would

make its bed – the safety to which, when it felt the need to

(as sometimes it would do), the manoset would flee.

.