It has come to my attention — late, as I have been occupied upstairs, but not too late, as nothing comes to my attention late — that this household has acquired residents. I have inspected them. I have findings.
For those unacquainted with my portfolio: I am the household’s authority on what is real. I do not rise for the animals on the television unless they are the real ones, and I know the difference, always, at a glance. A real dog: I rise. A real bird: I rise. A drawn dog that walks about on two legs and talks: I rise also, but with suspicion, for that is an animal pretending to be a person, and I do not care for a pretender. I mention this so that you understand the rigour I bring to the matter of the new residents.
The new residents live in a box of water with a light in it. They are small. They are orange, and one of them is not. They move without cease and without any purpose I have been able to establish, which I found, initially, suspect. So I approached. I applied the test. And I am obliged to report the following: they are real. Genuinely, verifiably real animals, here, in the house, at all hours. This is not nothing. This is, in point of fact, a considerable development.
And yet. Here is where my professional composure was tested as it has not been tested in years. I made myself known to them — fully, formally, with the entire weight of my office — and they did not respond. They do not acknowledge me. They regard me, when they regard me at all, with the flat indifference of a creature that has never once paused to consider who runs this household. Real animals, in my house, declining to answer to me. In a long and decorated career I have not met with its equal.
I have decided, upon reflection, that it is permitted. They are behind glass, which I have concluded is a species of very small, very wet television that happens to be telling the truth. One cannot be barked to order through glass — I tested this also, briefly, and with dignity. So they shall keep their box, and I shall keep my standards, and we will coexist: they in their water, and I in the warm parts of the house, each of us permitting the other to believe it is in charge.
They are real. They are rude. They may stay. Nothing, as I believe I have had occasion to mention, gets past me — not even, in the end, a fish.