Little Worker, Huge Love

I found the story ‘Little Worker,’ from Ribofunk very interesting because it was told from the point of view of a companion of a Prime Minister in Canada with her many duties and roles in protecting him from any danger. The character of Little Worker is appealing because as the reader, we are not sure what sort of species she is at first. Maybe she is some sort of feline with the emotions and mental capacity of a human? She wakes up, grooms her fur and is then on her way, starting the day with some breakfast, not cat food but some eggs instead. In order to be aware of all that is going on around the house, she sits at Mister Michael’s feet.

When she gets up, cleans her fur and stretches it makes me think she is feline; then when she is complaining about not being about to eat bread and jelly, I find myself thinking she is human as well.

Little worker has the love, compassion, envy and selfishness of a human. I see this when reading about how much love she has for Mister Michael and how much hate she has for his wife. “Mister Michael’s wife was not the kind of wife he deserved.” The fact that there is never a name given to the wife shows that Little Worker really hates the woman’s guts. Though Little Worker has compassion and envy of a human, she has the violence of an animal. “The part of her inheritance that was 30 percent wolverine took over.” Animals have the ability to turn off their compassionate brain and just focus on what needs to be done, even if that means killing humans. Especially if that means killing humans who might be threatening a loved one.

Coming from Alaska, where weekly I would see mother moose and their calves or mother black bears and their cubs, I learned pretty quickly not to get in the middle of these families. Mothers of any species are very protective of their young, especially when that species is part wolverine, like Little Worker. Whether Little Worker sees her self as a mother figure or a possible lover for Mister Michael it does not matter much because either way she will want to protect someone she cares about, just like I am sure we would all do.

Little Worker is some sort of a hybrid species and she is caught between two worlds. For those of us living in society today it seems very strange to have a hybrid species, very foreign and scary. It is scary because humans have the ability to do terrible things and animals have the ability to not feel remorse for the actions. This makes the creature naturally feared, if you can even use the word natural. The definition of natural according to dictionary.com is, “existing in or formed by nature.” In my mind, a hybrid creature is not formed by nature, therefore cannot be natural. So maybe it would be more fitting to call them artificially feared.

In the future I can see the possibility of there being hybrid creatures and I believe that as humans we will grow to accept them for what they are, or rather, what they will be.