“More arrant sentimentality,” said the cat, looking disgusted.
“You are a most offensive creature,” the beancounter said reprovingly, although she tended to agree with him. “Here, come sit upon my lap.” The animal shot her a surprised look, then did as she suggested, springing, circling, snuggling down, heavy orange head leaned back against her modest breast. She let one hand stroke down his coat, and again. “So what is this question we are meant to address?”
The lion rose, looked from one human to the other, and his glance took in as well the rumbling cat and the unseen presence.
“We are considering terminating our life.”
Elisetta pressed forward, shocked, all tranquility dispelled. Her voice cracked: “You must not! What would become of us?”
“That is not the question we wish to put to you, although it has a bearing. Yours is not the species that created us, before they departed, to whom we are beholden, yet you are living beings like those creators. We in turn created the great Minds that cloak the Sun, and built their habitation. Now they, too, are at the end of their dealings with this universe. They know all that might be known, and have imagined all that might be done within the greater landscape of universes. So now they propose to voyage into deepest time, to the ends of eternity. Perhaps something greater awaits them there.”
Bonida’s own small mind, acknowledging its smallness, reeled at the images flooding to her from the demigod whose own life and purpose were complete at last. Stars and galaxies of stars would fling themselves apart into the night, driven by the power of that darkness, their flaring illumination fading, finally, flickering, dying. All the multiple manifestations of cosmos torn apart and lost in a dying whisper. Her mood summoned from the treasure house the Adagietto from that composer Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, and she sank into its tinted, tearful melancholy. Yet in the frigid blackness and emptiness she detected…something. A lure, a promise, at the very least a teasing hint of laughter. How could the Skydark not follow that trace to eternity? How could she?
“Off,” she told the cat, and Marmalade sprang away, less offended than one might have expected. She stood up and took her mother’s hand. “We are the deputies of your makers, then? You and the Skydark require our…what? Permission? Leave to die, or to depart?”
“Yes.”
“And what’s to become of us?”
“You will remain for as long as we burn.” A vision was placed before them of the ringed world falling in upon itself, crushed into terrifying density, alight with the energies of compression. And Iapetus circling that new Sun, this visible star, unshielded, unveiled, but barren of mind. The agony of loss slashed tears from her eyes. Yet it was Saturn’s decision.
“Can we go instead with the Skydark? The Embee? May we share that voyage?”
“Thought you’d never ask,” said Marmalade. “And you, Madame High Governor, and Ouranos, Lord Arxon, do you concur with the wisdom and daring of this young woman?”
“I—” Her mother hesitated, gone once into death and retrieved by the gift of her child, looking from Bonida to the machine in which they stood. “Yes, yes of course. And you, sir?”
“We shall attend you, Lord Marmalade,” said the unseen presence. “Even unto the ends of eternity. It will be an awfully big adventure.”
A qualm brought the beancounter an abrupt pang. “What of the pedlar we hired? He’s still waiting for us, poor creature. He might not be so happy at the prospect. Who are we to make such a choice for a whole world?”
“He’ll get over it,” said the cat. “And hey, if not you, who?”
* * * *
The sky rolled up, and they set sail into forever.
A LITTLE PINCH IS ALL YOU NEED, by A. R. Morlan
A sudden and unaccustomed coolness on the top of his head woke Eric, and for a second, he imagined that his feet were cold, too, much colder than they ought to be, before he shook off the last of the groggies.
Sufficiently awake now, eyes accustomed to the murky semi-darkness of his bedroom, Eric looked around him and discovered that the troops had deserted their posts; no cats stationed at his head, sides and feet, keeping their commander warm. Hearing the thump of tails against the walls, Eric looked at the windows above the dresser and desk, and saw them—heads and shoulders hidden behind the shades, rear ends exposed and twitching—watching the Rabbit Race out near the backyard compost heap.
“Yo, cats, front and center,” Eric mumbled half into his pillow. “The rabbits will be on the lawn tomorrow night. C’mon, guys, I’m cold.” He made mousies under the covers, drumming the bottom of the bed under the spread and blankets, hoping that the troops would be conned by the delicious rustle of fabric and feetsies. No dice. Not that Eric really blamed the cats; for some reason, the mousies weren’t in fine form tonight. They weren’t very loud, for one thing; maybe his feet had fallen asleep and weren’t responding. Like the rest of you, his subconscious whispered.
But that’s weird, Eric’s mind argued, cuz they never doze off on me unless the cats are curled up on top of them.
Eric decided to try flexing his feet, get Old Man Circulation going. The hollow sound of the cat’s tails thumping against the wall and flat surfaces of the dresser and desk made the fine hairs on Eric’s arms and legs stand on end. Feebly trying to drown out the monotonous pounding, Eric pleaded, “C’mon, fellas, keep Poppa warm. Yo! Cats! The mousies are gonna escape if you don’t stop them from crawling away. Guys, the rabbits will be th—”
His stubbed toe made Eric wince. Felt like a keg of hot nails driven right up under the nail, and the cold floor didn’t make the pain any less—
Eric lay still, unable to move, not daring to make so much as a tiny, infantile squealing noise, lest it make what he had left anything more than the horrid nightmare it was. His big toe was stubbed; it was throbbing now, and so cold, the chill seeping up from the bare floor into the tender sole of his—
Foot, which had no reason to feel cold; it was still in bed, in his bed, oh please still be in bed. Not outside the covers and on the clammy floor by the dresser across the room…which was exactly where it felt like it was right now. Leave it to good ole dream logic—We Make The Illogical Real…like some sort of crazy commercial. He could now make out his legs in the eldritch light of his room; here the twin outlines of his thighs, there the twin peaks of his knees, and then—
—and then he couldn’t make out anything else below that point; there just wasn’t enough light in the bedroom yet. Nearby, the rhythmic thumps of furry tails meeting hard surfaces matched the steady pounding of his heart. Eric was shivering, so cold, like he felt after taking an early morning walk across his dew-covered lawn, the way cool dampness shot straight up through his feet to his—
Oh. My. God. They were moving. His feet. Moving; one over by the dresser, the other into the hallway, where the runner of cheap carpeting hid the stains on the linoleum, oh, God, no, his Foot was inching its merry way along the runner—toes digging into the nap—and into the living room where it stopped, cramped from the unaccustomed exercise. Eric could feel the pain all the way up into his teeth, which began to grind automatically. It was so bad that he almost—but not quite—missed the slight pinch as bone and sinew compressed and thinned along the wrist of his right hand. As the cramp in his wandering Foot subsided, Eric slowly brought his arm out from under the covers, just in time to dimly see his wrist become as elongated and thin as a credit card, so brittle that it was only logical that the heavy Hand would have to detach itself from his arm like a ripe apple falling from a branch, succumbing to the overwhelming pull of gravity.
Thankfully, there was no real pain in the separation, just a minor tug before the drop. Not that this is real, Eric told himself, as his right Hand fell abruptly with a soft thud onto his chest, leaving his pointed-off forearm hovering useless in mid-air. This is one wild mind-ride, cats, but come morning, you’ll get your yummies, promise, Eric mused. Tomorrow Poppa’s gonna get his act together, not to
mention the rest of him, and then maybe he’ll tell you guys about this dream—
After waiting a second to get its bearings, his Hand scuttered across the top of the quilted bedspread, fingernails catching in the loose threads, until it came to the edge of the bed. It paused, while Eric thought, C’mon, don’t just drop, climb down the bedspread, dummy. Which was what it did, alternately clutching and letting go of the fabric until it reached the floor.
Once down, it took off at a fast clip, balanced on fore and middle fingers, just like those Let Your Fingers Do the Walking advertisements. Eric had expected it to do the old Beast with Five Fingers schtick, inching along on its palm, the way the Beast did on TV when he was a kid (for weeks he had waited for the Hand to come scurrying out from under his bed, ready to choke him like it choked Peter Lorre).
Propping himself up on his left elbow to get a better look at it, he felt the pinch begin in his left wrist (part of a smokeless tobacco commercial popped into his mind, “Just a little pinch is all you need, just a little pinch—”).
Ignoring it, Eric looked down at his other Hand. It seemed so small, so pale, just a wee bit of a thing, really, high-stepping it across the cold floor. Luckily, the cats were engrossed in the antics of the Bugs Bunny cousins outside, so the Hand wasn’t in immediate danger of being pounced on and mauled like a catnip-filled cat toy. Not that my cats would dare eat my hand in my dream, Eric reassured himself, as the left Hand clumsily plopped down onto the hard floor. Unlike its mate, the Left lurched along on its palm, slowly (dream or no, the crash landing hurt).
By now, the Right was in the hallway, “walking” toward the living room. The Foot crawled over to greet Eric’s ambulatory Hand, while the other Foot, the one with the stubbed toe, inched cautiously over to the night stand, where Eric could see it. The nail on the big toe was beginning to darken, and the top of the ankle was neatly, bloodlessly pinched off.
As he watched the halting progress of the Foot, Eric felt a twin pinch—near the hips.
Yo! Unconscious! Dream factory, whatchamacallit, hey! This is a bit much now, Eric thought wildly, as the pinch bore down, deeper and deeper, until he could hear the bones and blood vessels compressing into a whisper-thinness, until—two slight pulls, and the Legs began hitching like two arthritic earthworms, alternately drawn up and flattened out, until they were free of his PJ legs. He couldn’t reach down to halt their progress with his stump-ended arms. The pinching had begun in his shoulders, too. And the Legs were gone, free, had skeedaddled; a pair of lightly-haired whitish lengths of flesh and bone, thump-thumping along the floor.
Not able to speak now, lest the cats finally pay attention to him—to all of him—Eric’s mind raged: See! You damned dumb cats, see what you did? You left me and now all my parts escaped from the bed! You and you and you and you sitting looking out the windows, see what you all did? Can’t even pinch myself awake cuz the Hands got away! There go the Arms! Now who’s gonna open up your cat food, huh, guys? You deserters! I hope it happens to you…there! Yeah, cats, lookit that, all your tails pinched off…how you like them apples, huh?
Watching the Cat Tails thump along the floor, followed by his own pinched Parts, Eric didn’t notice until too late that the pinching had started in his neck.…
* * * *
Eric woke up to a tangled mess of twisted sheets, blankets, hot (whole) cats, and sweaty PJ’s. Panting, Eric quickly thrust his arms and legs—with Hands and Feet attached, oh thank you, thank you God!—out of the covers, and held them up in the air like a baby just discovering his finsies and toesies, wiggling them in the golden morning light. Tears of joy, of pure blessed relief ran down his face and trickled in his ears. (He did have a cramp in his big toe, but it was a happy ache!)
He felt his neck, checked both shoulders, even lifted the covers and raised the elastic of his waistband. All members present and accounted for, Sir!
The troops, all five furry members, sat on the bed, watching Eric’s early morning antics with slit-eyed interest. One of them began to lick Eric’s hand, relishing the salty taste of his sweaty skin. The cats began to knead and purr in anticipation of breakfast in the kitchen, Eric stroked the nearest cat’s head and said, “You guys wouldn’t believe the dream I had last—” until the pinching of his Tongue was complete, and it fell out onto the covers before he thought to close his mouth.
The cats had breakfast in bed that morning.
THEY ALWAYS DIE, by Michael Hemmingson [Poem]
After my cat died in my arms
several friends asked
how my two-year-old daughter
reacted to the loss.
My daughter, Rominna, lives
in a different city,
a different country,
and never knew my cat
or what a cat was
until one afternoon, walking with
her in a small park, a feral cat
leapt across our path like
a sprinter in a marathon
and under a car.
Rominna pointed and said, “Gato!”
She learned this word from the
cats—los gatos—who hung around
the day care center waiting
for scraps of food and attention
from children.
Parents never warn their children about
the pets they want so badly,
that one day soon they will die
and no longer be there—from the goldfish
to the turtle, they all die
like people die, only sooner:
five years, ten years, fifteen:
cats, dogs, birds; ferrets and hamsters.
I have had half a dozen cats die or disappear,
buried a beloved cockatiel when I was fifteen,
a turtle when I was nine,
and the humans too:
a girlfriend when I was twenty-two,
a grandmother the same year,
another grandmother the next,
a father when I was forty-four.
I’m not going to get another pet,
unless my daughter wants one some day,
and I will tell her the truth—
the unavoidable pain and sorrow
that comes with happiness and love.
SCOUT, by Mary A. Turzillo
Spring equinox. Whirring sound. Flashing lights. Whoosh of advanced propulsion system.
“Mao! Mao! Mao! Mao! Mao! Mao! Mao!”
Door opens. “Scat! Get away from here! Go home!”
“Mao!”
Fifteen minutes elapse.
“Mao! Mao! Mao! Mao! Mao! Mao! Mao! Mao-ao-ao-ao!”
“I told you, scat! Nothing for you here! Go home!”
“Mao! Mao!”
“Go chase some mice. Or birds. I hate birds.”
“Maomaomaomao-ao-ao-ao!”
Splash. “There! Does that convince you? Now if I can just get back to sleep.”
Six hours elapse.
“What? You still here? Somebody dropped you, right? Threw you out of a car? Do you have a collar?”
“Yooooow! Ssssssss! Raaaaawooo!
“Ow! Forget it. Just be gone when I get home from work.”
“Prrt.”
Nine hours elapse. Car pulls up, door slams. Footsteps.
“Gone. Thank God. I was scared somebody took me for the cat lady over on Prospect.”
Six hours elapse. Door opens.
“Mao?”
“Go away! I’m calling the Animal Warden and that’s it. Hear me? Smoked kitty. Nice cyanide gas. Get! Scat!”
“Mao?”
“What are you doing? That has maggots on it. You can’t eat that!”
“Prrrrrr.”
“You’re eating maggoty ham, and purring? That’s disgusting!”
“Prrrrrrrrrrr.”
“How could anything get hungry enough to eat rotten meat? Wait a minute.”
Door closes, opens again.
“Here, here’s the rest of
my chicken wings. Hope you like garlic honey sauce. They’re cold, anyway.”
“Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.”
“Get away from my legs! I hate that. Didn’t I tell you I hate cats?”
Door slams. Eight hours elapse.
“Thank God it’s gone. Found some other sucker.”
Car door slams. Car starts, zooms away.
Three days elapse.
“Mao, mao, mao, mao, mao, mao, mao.”
“You again? I don’t have any more chicken wings. And I don’t believe you if you say you’re lost, because you left here Friday and then came back.”
“Prrt?”
“Let me look at your collar. I bet some nice little stupid girl is just weeping her eyes out over you. Woosy woosy woosy woosy.”
A brief chase.
“MAO!”
“Okay, so you have a collar, but no name on it. Real stupid little girl. She deserves to lose a prize flea-bag like you.”
“Prrt.”
“At least you didn’t scratch me again.”
Six hours elapse. Dusk gives way to nightfall. The air chills.
“Mao? Mao? Mao? Mao? Mao? Mao? MAO? MAO? MAOMAOMAOMAO?”
A window opens. “Shut up down there! Remember what I did the last time you woke me up?”
Footsteps on stairs. Door opens.
“MAOMAOMAOMAOMAOMAOMAOMAO!”
“Let me guess. You’re cold, right? If I give you something to sleep on, you’ll get cat hair all over it. And fleas. And worms. I bet you have worms, eating garbage like that.”
Door closes. Footsteps, sounds of rummaging. A piece of torn, dirty carpeting falls out of an upper window, THUMPS on the ground, raises billows of dust.
“Mao!”
Silence.
Seven hours elapse.
Door opens. “Where are you? Did you spend the night under the rug? Great, now what do I do with this piece of shit? I suppose I have to leave it, in case it’s cold again tonight. A decorator touch for my entry.”
Car door opens, closes, car speeds away.
Nine hours elapse.
“Here. For your majesty. It was cheap, and it looks better than that rug.”
“Mao. Prrt.”
The Third Cat Story Megapack: 25 Frisky Feline Tales, Old and New Page 33