A Small Light
Horace Johnson's wife had thrown him out of the house.
Why had she thrown him out of the house? The culprit of his latest experiment has been on her prized bearded dragons. He thought maybe he could breed a real dragon or at least make something fly; even that was a long shot. He had spliced some bat DNA into an egg hoping to get something resembling wings at least that was a start.
He now alternated his time between the garage and his lab where he ran experiments on genetically modified organisms.That, however had been just the beginning.Horace has been satisfied with the results of his latest experiment and soon he had tiny winged bearded dragons which flapped lazily around their enclosure looking at him placidly with large blinking eyes.
At least they had one up on their prey which a group of them usually devoured about ten seconds.This was the problem with Horace, however, he always thought he could one up himself which had gotten him into trouble more than once usually it resulted in something exploding or dying or both.
In this case he wondered if he could actually breed a real firebreathing dragon however it would be significantly scaled down. Maybe he could even sell them.His first few attempts resulted in what he expected the chemical components he needed to create something that could withstand breathing fire without incinerating the creature's innards were not easy to replicate. Usually this involved several of his subjects bursting into flame or dying before the subject has even hatched.
Finally he added another burst of reptilian DNA from some kind of snake hoping the different type of egg shell would at least withstand the genetically modified embryo. The result was a lizard with wings that emitted small sparks and had and excessive appetite he equated this to the energy the animal had to produce.He tweaked his chemical components which he injected into the lizards and bred the strongest specimens.
The result was interesting to say the least an iridescent, winged lizard which seemed to glow from the inside out and occasionally emitted small flames like a lighter. While they had the appetite of the standard bearded dragon they were moderately dangerous, Horace didn't think it was a good idea to market them to children or have them around cats and dogs.
"Those crazy lizards you could sell them as nightlights!" His friend suggested,
"Providing they're fed and don't set someone's house on fire."
Horace has never been a man to turn down money so he tried the best he could to see if he could get any sales. People either had to reactions; they thought it was really cool but too dangerous, or they thought he was absolutely crazy, Horace wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or bad thing.He finally marketed them to exotic animal enthusiasts who were used to taking care of "unusual creatures".
Then his sales for the few dragons he had began to pick up it also helped he sold them with a warning label:
Fire Hazard: Keep Away from Pets and Small Children
In the next few months he got several emails from satisfied customers. One such email came with an attached photo of one of the lizards sitting on a nightstand while he peered up at the camera glowing and looking nonplussed. Maybe his friend had been right about the nightlight thing.