PETS

Fury. Remove the “y” and you have fur. Because there is no “why?” with Cruella, there is only fur. No questions asked. She was a furious woman. Her hair jolted up like lightning bolts, with streaks of white and black electricity surging through them, it was thick, coarse, and matted, much like the coat of a husky. Her angular cheek bones cut the air like a dog whistle, were as pale white as the milky fleece of a westie and cold to the touch as if she had been dead for months. She had long, thin, spindly fingers that curled round at the ends in talons, almost like a cat. Her Labrador black, beady eyes bolted around, they were silhouettes of spots she longed to own. Spots she longed to kill.

Cruella could just see it now. A luxurious dalmatian coat that draped her gaunt figure, a cosy hood that hung like the grim reaper’s and dragged on the floor like a dead corpse. It wasn’t murder; all dalmatians were marked with the black spot, she was only putting them out of their misery. So if you think about it. Cruella was doing them a favour; at least that’s what the voices in her head told her.

She called them her PETS- proactive, eternal, toxic shadows. They danced around her mind and whispered to her their wicked thoughts, but these shadows loomed over Cruella and grew stronger with every bad deed she committed. They grew so large, some started to seep out of her scalp and turn her hair black with darkness. These ghosts tip toed around her brain, leaving speckless of black behind, dots of evil, spots of puppies. Cruella longed for spots.

She had them. All 99 of them. Little dalmatian puppies cooped up like chickens in the basement, ready for the plucking. Echoes of stifled barks crept up the walls and crawled along her old floorboards to were Cruella was perched, she trod on their pathetic attempt to call for help and smudged them into the wood beneath her red, pointy feet. Smiling to herself and her PETS she looked in her dusty mirror and cackled, the mirror trembled in fear as she pounded her feet on the ground with excitement. She was ready to skin some puppies.

Cruella descended down the winding staircases of the House of Deville, they twisted down like a bull dog’s tail. Opening up the latch of the basement door she heard her PETS chuckle with glee. A thunderstorm of voices came firing at her from all directions; kill them now, let them suffer, skin them alive. All considerations Cruella did not take lightly, she needed to measure up her competition. The door flung open, and she was surrounded by spots. Dots. Flecks. Freckles. Speckles. Blotches. Patches. She was surrounded by death.

In her talons she snatched a small, surprised, puppy; across its neck was a little blue name tag. “Patch.” What a funny name. All too fitting however, considering he was to become a patch on her nice new fur coat. Stroking his youthful, silky coat she could already feel it draped around her neck, the feeling of it fingering her naked skin. Carefully, she placed the precious cargo down again and removed her velvet red gloves, her polar bear fur coat and thread, by thread she unwound her sanity and she began to feel reckless.

“It wont be long now my PETS,” Cruella whispered. They bounded across her neurons and swung from each axon in turn, disrupting her thoughts and clouding her judgement. Picking up her scissors, she decided that skinning them alive would be much more rewarding. She would jab the sharp blade into their meaty skin and open the scissors while inside to open up a beautiful starting hole. Of course she would need to be careful not to get the blood on the fur, but she has 99. She can afford a few casualties. Snip snip, she would cut through the heavy fur and peal it away from their naked bodies as they whimpered in agony. For good measure she would stroke their burning flesh and snub her cigarette end into them to leave behind her own spots as they bled to death on the floor of her basement. Pools of blood would ooze out across the floor like evil spreading across an innocent mind. Perfect.

“who’s first?”

Looking at the rodents on the floor, she spotted a little one called Lucky. How ironic the PETS thought to themselves. Cruella picked up her first victim. Lucky looked up at her, with his big round, doughball eyes and started to pad her face with his soft rice flour paw. Moving towards her hair he stroked the spikes of black and it began to flatten. The white of Lucky’s paws repelled the darkness that leaked out of Cruella. But Cruella wanted that fur coat.

She raised the scissors into the air, shaking, she plunged it down towards the innocent bundle and missed.

“Do it you cowards!” Cruella screamed at her PETS.

“Kill the little Brutes!” she cried. Once again the scissors missed their target. Shrieking in rage, Cruella jabbed at the puppy multiple times, each time missing him by the thickness of a hair. The thickness of a nice fur coat which could be hers.

Cruella’s PETS were being stolen. Why couldn’t she kill these dogs without them? Why did she miss? Why was she scared of killing a small, helpless animal?

Suddenly, she threw Lucky down onto the floor and grabbed for the phone. Twiddling each dial in turn she got through to the police.

“Puppies. I have them. All 99. Get them. Take them. Now”

Cruella hung up the phone and stared at her musty hands, they had become damp to the touch from the soggy body of the dog. Of the puppy. Of the spot. Now that the puppy was out of sight, her PETS began to creep back in. She wanted to tare their limbs apart for making a fool out of her. She wanted to dismember their limbs and wear them as accessories. She wanted to pluck their teeth out and turn them into buttons.

She was caught.

Fury. Taking away the “y” makes fur. But Cruella had both. So why was she too afraid to skin a dog? So why did she turn herself in? So why did the PETS consume her every thought?

Why did Cruella get portrayed as a villain?