The Third Cat Story Megapack: 25 Frisky Feline Tales, Old and New

by Damien Broderick

  In the hallway of the twelfth floor, David had to think hard, trying to remember which windows, and how far in it was, for all the doors in the twilight-dark building (as seen from the street), and it wasn’t at the end or the middle but somewhere in between—and as if in answer to his mental question, the third door from the end on his left opened slowly, casting an elongated triangle of light into the hallway. Pale light, weak and wavery as if coming from a flashlight with bad batteries. And the pervasive smell grew stronger, more nose-stinging…yet comforting, too, in the way the odor of food soothed hunger pangs when he was a little boy. It was the street person from 49th and Ninth, not a crack dealer or a pimp with a messed-up brain and a sharp knife—

  —at least that was what David hoped, as he walked forward slowly, cautiously. The yellow light was further marred by a strange shape, also elongated, but with a thin upright tail. The appearance of the dark shape was followed with a yowl, not of anger but of feline recognition. Soon the thing was rubbing on his legs, leaving rank hairs on his corduroy slacks, but oddly, David didn’t care any more, just didn’t give a tinker’s damn about getting fur on his pants or cat-paw stink on his jacket. He scooped up the lumpy animal into his arms, hoisted the purring beast on his shoulder (its broken whiskers tickled his ear) and then tentatively knocked on the inside of the open door before entering the street woman’s lair.

  The bad smell was compounded by expelled human gas, fresh cat pee and some sort of found food that was going bad. Weak dirty light came through the mended top part of the window, and the grill of the air conditioner was a snaggle-toothed dead mouth, jutting into the room where she had made herself a nest: old crumbling newspaper, shed rags, limp vegetable things of uncertain variety, old sneakers, rusty bike parts and green-fuzzed cans.… And she sat in the middle of that nest turbaned and dreadlocked head even bigger than he remembered it, the furrows near her mouth even deeper and blacker than he remembered them to be.

  But her eyes…even without the feeble rays of the battered flashlight stuck in one clawed hand, they would have been beautiful. Still oily, still hooded, but…wondrous to David nonetheless. For sheer wanting, sheer hungering need had to be nothing less than beautiful, transcendent, even.

  The cat draped itself on David’s shoulder, purring, kneading his flesh through the padded fabric. And although its eyes were flecked with clumps of brownish pigment, half-blinding it, still the trust and love shone through, spreading sun-like warmth across David’s cheek. His skin felt almost warm, so dazzling was the trust in the cat’s green eyes. It blinked kitty-kisses at him, just like the cats used to do back home. The trust it held in him was that complete…as the woman raised her hands toward David, beckoning him with her hooded oily eyes.

  And without thought, hesitation or trepidation, David moved closer to her, the street person whose odor all but caused the air to shimmer and David’s nostrils to collapse in on themselves. When he was less than eight inches from her, close enough to feel her body heat, David knelt down, let those hungering talon-like hands with the horny black rimmed nails rake lovingly against his jacket sleeve, down, down to his gloved hand, and exposed wrist. He did not flinch when she rested her flesh against his, basking in whatever it was she was leeching from him, his being…but he did speak. Softly, so as not to shatter the radiance of this room, this place, this moment. David whispered:

  “Grandma, I am so sorry…and girls, Missy, Bandito, Terri, I am so sorry…but what could I do? It was so hard to love—but the hardness didn’t make it not so, do you see what I mean? But it wasn’t hard for you all to love and trust, even when the craziness made it hard to know what was within you even when I wasn’t worth the effort. Even when it was hard for me I ran and ran from where I was, from what I was, but it didn’t stop me from hungering, from needing what I couldn’t take or ask for…but look. Here I am. I know sorry doesn’t make it right, can’t change what was wrong…but…well the feeling was there, somewhere, in me. There, y’know?”

  And then the smells and the sorry sights blurred away from him, runny and watery as rain, as strange fluid squirted on a windshield. And later, he remembered the touch, on his sleeve, his face, the back of his neck, but the fingers and paws were all wrong—yet right, too. The fingers were too much like those he’d remembered from the time before his Gramma went crazy-mean. And the small paws were too soft, too numerous by far.…But not wanting to shatter the precious thing given to him after long years of needing, of hurting, of hungering for forgiveness, he kept his eyes shut as he backed out of that stinking place, only opening them when he reached the hallway.

  Then he ran, not daring to look back, to confirm, until he reached the window exit and barreled down the ringing metal steps, his breath a faint hazy plume behind him. When he reached the dark alley, he paused for a ragged breath; then, when his breathing was normal, he made his way back to the street where he saw in the frosty glare of the streetlight that his hub-caps, antenna and windshield wipers were gone, but the sight of his denuded car only made David smile. He hoped that whatever money whoever took the parts had gotten would go a little way toward stopping whatever hunger had driven the person to thievery in the first place. It didn’t matter to him which altar the person prayed before, seeking release from their private hunger and want.

  It didn’t matter to David at all, as he climbed behind the wheel, and headed for his apartment, not even stopping on the way home for something to eat. He was quite full, for the first and final time.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Inspired by the non-fiction of Alan Rodgers, this work is nonetheless 90% autobiographical. In memory of Missy, Bandito, Terri, Blackie, Diablo, Arthur, and Rocky I. And Spooky and Thelma, too.

  RYAH’S GUEST, by Robert Reginald

  Ryah was looking for Ashurbanipal when she first stumbled upon the green man. She heard the cat hissing somewhere in the garden, and found him in the grotto of St. Willibrord, stalking the little man and backing him into the alcove formed by the sculpture’s stone knees. Only the incessant thrustings of a miniature sword were keeping the miniature swordsman from being beheaded by the angry beast.

  “Ashby!” Ryah yelled. “Bad kitty!”

  She shooed the cat away with a sweep of her dainty foot. The puss gave his mistress a thoroughly disgusted look, hunched his back, and then slowly paraded down the gravel pathway, his long striped tail held high in the air.

  “Thank you most kindly, dear lady,” the small voice spoke. The man doffed a bright green hat, complete with outsized yellow plume, and swept it to the ground in an extended bow. “May I inquire of your appellation?”

  “What?” she asked.

  “How are you called?” he said, stomping one foot in impatience.

  “You mean my name?” the woman inquired. “Ryah von Falkensteig.”

  “Of the Austrasian Falkensteigs?” the little man asked.

  “Well, I really don’t think so,” she said. “What about you?”

  “What about me?” he stated.

  “Your name,” she said.

  “Oh, umm, well, you can call me Thumb. Yes, Thumb will do very nicely.”

  “But that’s not your real name?”

  He chose not to answer, but instead pulled out a small white card, reciting the words printed upon it:

  “Since you have preserved my unworthy existence, I am required, under the Code of King Belshazzar the Unlucky, to grant you the possibility of three wishes. You do not have to accept any or all of these wishes, and you can stop wishing at any time. However, all requests must be tendered within the next forty-eight hours, your time, or you forfeit the offer. Do you understand?”

  He pocketed the document.

  Ashby appeared once more from under a nearby bush, snarling at the intruder who had the audacity to impose himself upon the person of his mistress. Ryah was his human, and no other’s.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “You’re offering me anything I want?”

  “Within limits,” th
e green-clad man said.

  “Ah.” She sat down on an adjoining bench. Ashby jumped on the bench, and promptly curled up in her lap. “What are those limits?”

  “Certain requirements do apply,” the little figure said. He pulled out a small scroll about an eighth of an inch wide, and held it outstretched. Then he abruptly jumped back when the cat took a swat at him, knocking loose the small piece of parchment.

  “You can read them if you wish,” he said from a safe distance.

  She reached down and took up the scrap, unrolled the end of it carefully, and glanced down.

  “I can’t read that,” she said. “The printing’s too small.”

  “I have much the same problem,” the little man said, “although not for the same reason.” Ryah tossed the document back to him, and he returned the scroll to his green-and-brown vest. Ashby just hissed.

  “Can’t you summarize?” she said.

  “Well, all right,” Thumb said. “First, you cannot change the physical reality of your own world.”

  Seeing her puzzled expression, he explained: “For example, if you wanted me to make the world square, it just doesn’t work that way, does it?

  “Second, I’m not allowed to do anything that would directly harm another human being. I know, this runs directly contrary to our general reputation, but it’s one way we maintain our existence.

  “Third, I can’t change history. I’m not allowed to go back in time and erase Adolf Hitler, for example. He lived, he died, he had the awful effect he did on all subsequent time.

  “Fourth, I can’t always give you everything you want all at once. If you asked for all the gold in the world, that might be possible, but it would take time to set up a scenario in which you could plausibly receive such a benefit.”

  “That sounds awfully restrictive,” Ryah said.

  “I don’t make up the rules.”

  “Who does?” she asked.

  “Is knowing that one of your wishes?” he asked.

  “Of course not!” the young woman said. “I’m really going to have to think about this. Come back to the Hanging Garden tomorrow, if you please, and I’ll give you my response.”

  “Very well,” the green man said. “If you need me, just call my name three times, and I’ll be there.”

  Then he turned round and round and round until he was just a blur of speed, and gradually faded from sight. Ashby jumped at the fading image of the creature, but there was nothing left to catch.

  Ryah remained seated for a very long time, pondering this and that and the other. She really would have liked to improve her appearance, which she regarded as plain or even ugly. Her face was too thin, her nose too long, her midsection just a wee too large for her comfort. If only she was as thin and pretty as Rÿna or Rella or Remorah or…or…too many other girls. Then maybe she’d be more popular. But…with so many things wrong in the world, was even thinking such thoughts right? So much could be done with a wish that might improve, well, everything. Who ever thought that a simple wish could be so hard? And three of them?

  All night long she heaved and rolled and wished she could sleep. Only Ashby, only her faithful kitty, remained by her side, dancing the pas de deux of wakefulness with Ryah until dawn arrived.

  * * * *

  Thumb reappeared in the garden the next day, while Ryah was combing the loose hair from her kitty’s back.

  “Oh, there you are,” she said. “I was wondering if you’d return. Let me ask you another question about the granting of wishes, if you don’t mind. If I requested something like an end to war, is that possible?”

  “It’s contrary to the nature of man,” her guest said.

  “What about eliminating pollution?” Ryah asked.

  “That’s possible.” He sighed. “But to do it I’d have to collapse modern civilization back to the Stone Age; many would die as a result, and this would run contrary to the second rule. Sorry.”

  “I thought so,” the young woman said. “Basically, I can only have very simple things, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’ll give you my first wish, sir. My friend Ramona’s mother is seriously ill with breast cancer. Let her have her health back, please.”

  “As you wish, so shall it be,” the little gentleman solemnly stated, and twirled away into nothingness. Then, just as abruptly, he returned, his arms folded firmly across his chest. Ashby expressed his disapproval at the creature’s reappearance by meowing very loudly at him.

  “Ramona’s mother will gradually recover her wellness from this day forward,” Thumb intoned. “She will live at least another decade, if not longer, and the cancer in her breast will never recur.”

  “Thank you.” Ryah exhaled her pent-up breath. One down! “Secondly, I’d like there to be one day of peace in the world, a day in which no one is killed by another for reasons of politics, of religion, of organized hate, of official state business. Let all the private quarrels remain, because I know I can’t change everything without altering history—but just this one thing, please, if you can, would be a small step in the right direction for everyone.”

  The little man smiled. “I think I can arrange that,” he said. “As you wish, so shall it be. I’ll do it on the 21st, your birthday.”

  “That’s the greatest gift I could possibly receive,” she said. “And…and, finally, I would like to be a little more…a bit, uh, more…no, no, belay that.”

  She gasped out loud then, filled with pain, because she knew what she desired so desperately, to be loved and cherished for what she was and not how she appeared; and then ran her hand slowly down Ashby’s furry back again. She found a comfort there that matched no other, and her despite, her fear, gradually ebbed away.

  “What would you like, Mr. Kitty?” she whispered.

  The cat just snuggled down deeper in his mistress’s lap, kneaded her knees with his forepaws, and purred, long and loud, content with whatever it was he had at that moment.

  “You’re right, my pet: I am already more fortunate than most. No, Sir Thumb, this is what I ask for my third wish: that you experience one perfect moment of beauty for you. Do what you wish to make yourself happy. You see, I have enough.”

  She brushed her hands across Ashby’s warm back.

  “No one has ever requested that from me.” The small green man put his right arm under his chest, and bowed deeply. “As you wish, madame, so shall it be!” Then he vanished on a mere breath of wind, as if he’d never, ever been.

  * * * *

  The next day at noon, Ryah was brown-bagging it in the park, sitting on a long bench that was gradually filling up with the usual suspects.

  “May I sit here?” asked a handsome young man, pointing to the only vacant spot remaining.

  “Of course,” she said, munching on a celery stalk and reading her book. She had a penchant for Lewis Carroll, particularly the bit about the Cheshire-Cat.

  “I’m Tom,” he introduced himself.

  “Ryah,” she responded, not paying all that much attention at first. She’d just reached the part where Alice had encountered the Cat the second time when she noticed that he wasn’t eating, and abruptly looked up, catching his hazel eyes staring directly back at her. He sported an emerald polo shirt with the small emblem of a lamp over his left breast.

  “Whatever are you doing?” she asked, taken aback by the gentlemen’s fervent attention.

  “Enjoying one moment of perfect beauty,” the green man said, smiling at her.

  And she knew then that this was one wish—one gift—that she could never refuse.

  No matter what Ashby thought!

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  PEGGY BACON (1895-1987) was an American artist and writer. The True Philosopher and Other Cat Tales, from which the story herein is taken, was the first book out of the nineteen that she wrote, and the sixty that she illustrated.

  MARILYN “MATTIE” BRAHEN, an American writer, has published stories in England and America. Wildside Press publishe
d her first and second novels, Claiming Her (2003) and Reforming Hell (2009), and her first mystery, Baby Boy Blue, appeared under the Borgo Press imprint in 2011. She’s currently working on both a children’s book and a mainstream novel.

  DAMIEN BRODERICK is an Australian science fiction and popular science writer and editor of more than 50 books. His science fiction novel The Judas Mandala is sometimes credited with the first appearance of the term “virtual reality,” and his 1997 popular science book The Spike was the first to investigate the technological Singularity in detail. His Wildside Press and Borgo Press books include: x, y, z, t (2003), Ferocious Minds (2005), I’m Dying Here (with Rory Barnes, 2009 & 2012), Unleashing the Strange (2009), Chained to the Alien (Editor, 2009), Climbing Mount Implausible (2010), Skiffy and Mimesis (Editor, 2010), Embarrass My Dog (2010), Warriors of the Tao (Editor with Van Ikin, 2011), Human’s Burden (with Rory Barnes, 2011), Post Mortal Syndrome (with Barbara Lamar, 2011), Zones (with Rory Barnes, 2012), Adrift in the Noösphere (2012), Building New Worlds (with John Boston, 2013), Valencies (with Rory Barnes, 2013), New Worlds (with John Boston, 2013), Strange Highways (with John Boston, 2013), Xeno Fiction (Editor with Van Ikin, 2013).

  LEWIS CARROLL (1832-1898), the well-known British writer, mathematician, and photographer, is best remembered today for his classic fantasies, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass (1871), but he also penned such classic nonsense poems as The Hunting of the Snark (1876) and “Jabberwocky” (1871).

  MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN (1852-1930), an American writer, began writing at a young age, and eventually produced more than two dozen novels and collections, among them several important regional works set in New England, and many collections of short stories with supernatural and horror elements.

  MICHAEL HEMMINGSON lives in Southern California and Baja California. His first independent film, The Watermelon, was released in 2009. He’s now working on other films, other books, other tales. He is also a cultural anthropologist and sociologist, publishing works such as Zona Norte: An Autoethnography. He won the 2009 Norman Z. Denzin Qualitative Research Award from the Carl Couch Center and University of Illinois at Urbana, and is a two-time Everett Helm Fellow at the Lilly Library of Indiana University, where he conducted research into the papers of Gordon Lish/Raymond Carver, and the art books of William Vollmann. He serves as a radio host with a Wednesday show, The Art of Dreaming, at Revolution Radio (freedomslips.com), where he focuses on the lunatic fringe and exopolitics. His Wildside Press and Borgo Press books include: The Rose of Heaven (2004), How to Have an Affair and Other Instructions (2007), In the Background Is a Walled City (2008), The Dirty Realism Duo (2008), Seven Women (2008), The Yacht People (2008), The Stripper (2008), Sexy Strumpets & Troublesome Trollops (2009), Star Trek (2009), The Fellowship of Amorous Gentlemen (2009), Auto/Ethnographies (2009), Judas Payne (2010), Vivacious Vixens & Blackmail Babes (2012), Poison from a Dead Sun (2013), The Chronotope and Other Speculative Fictions (2013).