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Ingo Swann – To Kiss the Earth Goodbye

Hastily put into a makeshift cage, he stared out at the world with a soulful look that was positively heartrending.

So, since his urine didn't stink and his droppings came out rock-hard and could be vacuumed up, I relented and, after taking precautions on what was chewable, let him have the run of the apartment.

It wasn't long before I understood that this was a thinking beast since he could obviously plot and plan his moves and figure out how to get at things of interest to him. Chinchillas have an opposable digit on their front feet, so they can use them almost like hands.

At night, however, since he was likely to push things off onto the floor, making great crashes that would bring one suddenly out of a sound sleep, he had to be relegated to his cage. There he stared out, his eyes sparkling with fury at the indignity of it. But chinchillas are nocturnal rodents.  Thus he tended to become scarce when it came time for him to go into his cage each night. I was obliged to search for him and he never hid in the same place twice. This got to be a problem, since it sometimes took half an hour to discover him and then considerable time to chase him into the bathroom where I could get hold of him.

But he was magnificent, and his intelligence and learning patterns were superb.

One night, however, while I was sitting in front of the tube, Mercenary jumped up on my knee to have his chin and ears scratched, which he liked. The TV program was exceedingly boring, as usual, so I thought I would go to bed early.  At the merest thought, the grey-fluff rose instantly about two feet in the air and vanished from view.  I had not moved at all when the thought of putting him in his cage occurred. Yet he tore off in a grey cloud and the typical search and chase were on.

Up to this time, although I had always had a great interest in the occult and in things psychic, the interest had been merely academic. Awareness of things psychic was part of my makeup, being based on childhood memories, but in no way was there abilities extant at that time.

It came as a stunning recognition, therefore, when I realized that he had obviously picked up my thought.

No words will reflect my astonishment. I will only say that, whatever the collective concepts of thought and existence in my head, all of them collapsed in that moment into a heap of shards in my mental cellar.

For several days I was busy testing this out. I would think of putting him in his cage at very unlikely times. The effect was superb. After what appears to have been a brief learning period, he refused to react but would sit upon his hind legs, his eyes blazing, his tail switching back and forth, while he mentally probed my mind to find out if I meant it or if this was just another testing sequence. I brought in one or two friends, explaining to them beforehand that when I winked at them they were to "think" about putting Mercenary in his cage. The results were always immediate.

Amazement and excitement about Mercenary's telepathic abilities lasted about three weeks before the implications began to set in. These began perhaps with the conclusion that, if all chinchillas were similarly telepathic and we humans had to fight a war with them, we would certainly lose.

Once a full understanding of his telepathic nature set in, a great deal about him seemed reasonable. He knew, for instance, when I was thinking about feeding him, since he always appeared promptly. He knew when I was displeased with him for chewing up two volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and so he did not attack the rest of the volumes thereafter.

A dreadful implication finally rose to consciousness.  Mercenary could pick up my thoughts, but I couldn’t pick up his.