Mere Playthings by Jack Cade

to me it says you can gentically alter wild animals all you like, but they are still wild animals and not cutsey playthings. Also just read 'Some guys phone is ringing' by Jack, very original and excellent in its observation and description. Ty http://www.abctales.com/story/jack-cade/some-guys-phone-starts-ringing Juliet

i thoroughly enjoyed this one too - lots of amusing turns of phrase, 'Jon considers sharing ... he blew his birthday money on', 'stares intently, like a stern librarian'. and poor Sam, gobbled up 'like sushi', perhaps partly for her patronising attitude to animals. but i thought there was also a gender divide going on in the poem. the cats are effectively turned into babies. Sam wishes to coo and play mother, oblivious to Jon's furtively purchased action figures which reveal his furtive desire for action and adventure.

Thanks muchly for the comments. There's no real 'point' to the piece, except that it's intented to be part of a sequence where every sci-fi b-movie disaster hits the earth at once and everyone learns to cope with it. In this one, I just liked the joke of 'Jon' willing his toys to life, and instead inadvertently (or maybe it was nothing to do with him - who knows?) turning Sam's into monsters. I don't know about toys having a short shelf life. I like the way children can take the most seemingly rubbish, ephemeral little toys and hang onto them lovingly for years for no real reason. It's ace.