Fictional Short Story
Servant Lady read aloud that “creation itself will be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.” She knew I wasn’t paying attention. The sun was up, and I was napping in a warm blanket of rays with my heavy eyes shut. “Share. Share? So does that mean that if I want my cat to make it to heaven, I have to make it there and share it?” An odd question, yet unsurprisingly about me. I’m a cat, a calico named Cinnamon. And I did not respond to the question, as it would only encourage her to believe me awake.
However, I lifted my head when she signaled her departure by unlocking the deadbolt to the apartment complex hallway. I glared at her, daring her to explain herself. I was regal, enthroned on my plush carpeted tower by the balcony sliding doors. And this was my day to have her. I give her up too many other days of the week, but when she is “off work”, I expect her to stay and tend to my needs.
“I’m sorry, Cinnamon. I have to go. It’ll only be maybe an hour and a half, two hours at most. I’m going to Eucharistic Adoration to try to get clarification. It’s really important!” She rushed over, and I allowed it, still side-eying her as she pet my head. I deserved at least that much, since she was leaving. And her grief about abandoning me was somewhat mollifying. Done petting me too soon, she earned my resigned sigh when she rushed just as quickly to leave and bolted the door behind her.
Arching my back to stretch away the sleep, I looked about for an explanation as to the noise level. Servant Lady, it seemed, had departed in such a hurry that she had left the balcony doors open, so the traffic outside was nearly deafening. We lived but a toy-toss from a four-lane highway. The balcony was awash in sunlight, however, much more than I was receiving on my carpeted tower, so I gingerly leapt to the floor and ventured out. My body had become ungainly and weak, heavy somehow, but I still prowled in a sneaky, cat-like way.
The neighbor dogs had their balcony door open a crack, too. I heard the occasional snuffle and snore from their clumsy though muscular bodies, hidden within their apartment. Really, they were such ogres, but they were harmless. I supposed that I was nearly harmless myself, since I had been losing so much energy lately. I wondered whether that was the reason Servant Lady felt she had to come to terms with my afterlife. If only I had taught her to live in the moment, I reflected. Time was running out, so I stretched my heavy body across the warm, dark balcony planks and let my eyelids obey gravity without resistance.
My ears remained half-alert, given the absence of Servant Lady. Therefore, I noticed immediately when maintenance workers in uniform polo shirts approached the balconies with a ladder. Identifying them as new staff, never before serving my needs, I rested my head again. I was confident that my potential prey, if I chose to hunt the staff, had not spotted me, since they were setting up their ladder to the dogs’ balcony, not paying attention to me. Only my ears swiveled to observe them discreetly, in case they should attempt to turn the tables and become predators themselves.
There is a misconception among humans that cats do not understand English or whatever the language of their servants. We do, in fact, understand you. We simply choose not to respond to our lessers. Only one sad cat in the history of the world allowed himself to be dominated by humans. Legend has it that the naive cat was half-dog. He performed several tasks as ordered by the CIA, although not all of the orders. He was still half-cat after all. Most brutally implanted with a microphone and antenna, the poor creature was then murdered by a car on its way to its first spying mission. Servant Lady wiped a few tears away on the day she read aloud this tragedy on the internet.
Just imagining what the CIA had intended for us as a species caused me to tense despite the embrace of the sunshine. I stretched my legs and claws to dispel the unpleasant feeling. A sweet breeze fluffed my fur in a most flattering way. I sniffed in appreciation and nearly forgot about the men and their ladder when I next heard the one on the ground warn his companion, “Get the duct tape on them quickly. They’ve obviously never fought before, but they can still bark. We don’t want to attract any attention. I’ll get up there with the kennels as soon as I have this ladder loaded in the back.” I looked in time to see the other man set foot on the balcony and wave in response, then take the roll of duct tape off his belt. Knowing that my eyes could attract attention, I turned away once I’d gotten a good look.
Kennels? Fighting? It sounded as if the happy, tail-slapping beasts next door would be learning a new skill. Of course, I then recalled Servant Lady gasping at a different news story about dog fighting rings that involve betting on beasts in gladiator-style championships. Really, you humans could solve world hunger, but you set your creativity to the most macabre projects instead.
No one else would hear the staff, I realized, over the traffic noise. Only someone as close as I was. I licked my paws to dispel the tension rising within me, and I narrowed my piercing gaze toward the ratty man. He appeared to be clean, but he had an unappetizing odor, smokey and pungent, too fruity to be nicotine. I would never eat such a creature.
His uniform shirt was too starchy, as if he had never worn it before. His hair was shaggy, as if he had no plans to impress anyone at a job interview. I also recognized in him the cruelty of a hunter who could play with his food before killing it. Like recognizes like. But when I saw it in him–saw myself in him–, a bitter, metallic taste filled my mouth. I studied the traffic to clear my senses.
The man slid the balcony door wider and stepped into my neighbors’ apartment. Big, dumb claws scurried, attesting that the dogs were rising to their considerable height. They would come up to that humans’ waist. Then, cries and yips filled my delicate ears and caused my blood to boil. The dumb beasts were being duct taped indeed. Soon, they would be loaded into cages and forced to fight or die. This was just the sort of thing that made Servant Lady cry.
I thought of the mice I had disassembled in my younger days, and I was sorry. Old and becoming heavier than my food would account for, I regretted many of the ways I’d spent my life. I now had cancer, according to the vet, and limited time left to make things right.
When I heard the man on the ground click the metal ladder into place, something clicked inside me, a decision. I’m a cat, I said to myself. I’ve always done everything my own way. Oh yes, you can try to get me down from on top of the cupboards, but once I see the inevitable descent coming, I will climb down another way to spite you. I do things my own way, I mused as I tracked the man on the ground, his ladder squeaking with every footfall. It reminded me of too many hours tracking toys with jingle bells attached, toys chosen by Servant Lady.
The realization that Servant Lady really understood me caused overpowering feelings that culminated in a full, hard blink. I was loved. And here was the chance to return love before my life was over. For Servant Lady, so that she wouldn’t cry over the missing ogres, I flexed my claws and stood for a final hunt, swaying as my legs summoned the dying embers of their leaping prowess.
Adjacent to my balcony was a gutter to the steeply slanted roof. The shingles were sandy like the litter box, and I suppressed thoughts of what might be causing it to clump so perfectly. Yes, the shingles would supply traction, but the shiny gutter was optimal for cleanliness. I’d often wondered whether a mouse might run through that trench, so I had studied the footwork around bolts and debris, but I had never taken the route, not wanting to leave my deterring scent. Watchful, strategic, and always hopeful, that was me. Now, I made my way on hushed paws under the balcony railing and into the metal trench. I believed myself to have vertigo and kept going when there was a slight shimmy beneath me, focused on listening to my prey ahead.
My quarry was not so silent, shuffling around inside the apartment and ignoring the dogs now. The scalding heat of the metal gutter evoked only a narrowing of my eyes. I trained my ears forward, and I padded through the pain with quickened step. All my skills acquired by stalking felt-skinned mice in my apartment were paying off.
When I was halfway to the neighboring balcony, the gutter gave way with the suddenness of an entire bag of popcorn detonating at the same time. Adrenaline exploded and triggered my claws. Instinct alone sent my paws flying for the nearest sandy roof tile. The stapled pieces were black and even hotter than the gutter! I had a scalding hold with both front paws, but pulling myself up was still going to be a challenge. There was no purchase for my back claws on the flat, plasticky building siding, so I swung my tail and both my legs to the left, catching hold of another blistering hot roof tile with one back toe, then the rest of the claws on the left foot. Finally, I pulled myself up on shaking limbs and steadied my breath, cat on a baked litter roof.
What was I doing, I asked myself. Recon? I had no plan. Traffic hadn’t stopped for the kitty swinging from a rooftop. No backup, like the cops on TV. I was so small, so insignificant compared to the noisy cars, trucks, and the occasional motorcycle that the man in the apartment hadn’t responded to the clamor of the gutter giving way. He was still shuffling about, the same as before. To their credit, however, I could tell the dogs were listening, trying to identify me. Their scuffling struggles against their bonds had stilled the moment the gutter had given way, and now one of them whined. Of course, I understood the ogre was asking me to identify myself, but who could give up the possibility of a grand, dramatic entrance? I ignored the beast.
What I needed was a plan for after the dramatic entrance. Well, I couldn’t attack the men directly and win. And the second man bringing cages to the apartment would arrive any minute. I would have to take them out one at a time, find a way out to the hallway from my neighbors’ apartment, and then go get help. With that sketchy plan in mind, I turned around on the dangerously slanted roof and, more claw than pad, made my way back to my apartment for my most prized possession, a distraction that had always worked on me and … something I wouldn’t need much longer anyway: My robotic sandpiper toy.
This toy was motion activated. It chirped and flapped in a most life-like way until any decent cat wouldn’t be able to stand it anymore. It made me pounce and gnaw and shake, and then it would restart the motion activation. The whole process would repeat until it ran out of juice and had to be re-charged. Servant Lady’s hiding spot rejuvenated the robotic beast, a lair which I would now, sadly, die before discovering. I leaped between my own balcony rails, landing in the cooling shadow of my awning, focused solely on where I would find the little beast. I rounded the sliding door and used my nose to tip the flap of an old cardboard box. My first guess had been accurate. There it was. Servant Lady had replaced the sandpiper for me under the usual flap of a cardboard box, and I hadn’t mounted the energy to play with it since it was last charged. As a result of my decline in health, it was ready for today’s mission.
Thus armed, I headed back to the dogs’ apartment, jumping with more cushion and care now that I had to prevent the sandpiper from feeling the jolts. My heart wrenched at the idea of never discovering the sandpiper here again. It was farewell forever to the sweetest toy. But a muffled whoof from next door spurred me on across the hot, sandy roof. I wondered whether I would see my apartment again. Had I received my last head petting from my beloved Servant Lady? She was the one who rescued me from the shelter, giving me a domain to call my own. Because of her, I’d known love. Was this the end of all that?
The sandpiper made no reply. Now contorting myself through the neighbors’ balcony railing with the toy and then cooling my abused paws in a shadow, I controlled my breathing for optimal listening. My prey was directly ahead and against the shadowy back wall as I faced the apartment. The dogs were to my right.
The man in the apartment seemed to be trying to find something in the refrigerator. It sounded like bottles clinking and then plastic drawers opening and shutting. I could only hear, not see him on the other side of the kitchen island. The man was too close for me to free the dogs before getting caught. Meanwhile, the other man was nowhere near opening the door to the hallway for me. I had to bide my time.
My mouth full of the sandpiper, I made dangerous eye contact with the restrained dogs, daring them to make noise. They did, fighting their bonds and grunting against their duct taped jowls with renewed vigor, but the man with his head in the refrigerator did not look their way. Muffled as they were, I couldn’t tell whether the ogres wanted to chase me or steal my toy, but since they were dogs, I wasn’t counting on becoming friends. This was for Servant Lady. Although, I had to agree that they didn’t deserve to die by fighting for their lives. I rolled my eyes at them. Then I slunk behind the stupid behemoths, heading for one of the side rooms.
In the middle of a bedroom decorated with sparkly and dangly things including strings of icicle lights that really should have been plugged in for me, I took the stage and waited for my cue. It came when I heard the door open to the parking lot downstairs. The man with the cage was coming, and he would open the door to the hallway soon, so that I could run for help. It was time!
I shook my favorite toy as if to break its neck, then spat it out on the floor. It chirped as if in panic, fluttering its wings against the plush carpet in imitation of my palpitating heart. I stood like a queen, my soul-deep blink the only betrayal of my true emotions, because this toy was exquisite. I would miss it almost as much as Servant Lady once I was gone. And where would I be then? If I went to heaven, would lions really lie down with lambs there? All my being cried out to attack my wonderful sandpiper just one last time, but my lips were sealed and my ears on alert. The human’s breath caught at the first chirp, and now work boots thumped my way. All too soon, I would know what sort of afterlife awaited my kind.
When the boots came into sight, I wiggled my back end, then launched myself between the boots, darting with a fury I had nearly forgotten. “Hey!” the man yelled. He touched my tail, a mere brush against my fur, but it was enough to blast me with another jolt of adrenaline.
Fortunately for me, the owners of this apartment had applied non-skid rugs, probably for their dogs. Bare hardwood floor would have caused me to fly through a wall at this speed. I tore around the corner and made straight for the dogs, making quick work of their duct tape with only one of the claws I kept razor sharp for such a time as this. Both were free and clambering to their feet when the man caught me. He picked me up by the scruff of the neck. And just as he was shifting me to a more polite hold, the door to the hallway opened.
“MEOW!” I shouted at the dogs. “Run for it!” is the nearest human translation. They had seen my claws and knew that I could handle the human who thought he was holding me. The man would have been better off continuing to hold me by the scruff, but he must have been more of a dog person, unaware of the danger he was in. I watched the dogs, slashed duct tape still stuck to their fur, long enough to see them knock down the second man with the kennels as he attempted to enter the apartment. “Bravo!” I encouraged them with my enraged warcry.
I turned to the pungent-smelling man. He wrestled to prevent my squirm, the fool. His resistance was comical. It also caused him to bring his face closer to me. I took a mighty swipe across his cheek. Four of my claws nearly reached the depth of his tongue. He flung me away, and I happily landed on a couch. Rolling a bit, I regained my feet and made for the hallway, following the dogs. But the man with the kennels had recovered his footing.
Darting between his legs, I almost made it, but the man took a firm hold of my tail. I swiped at him and drew blood from his hand. He lifted me by the tail and swung me into a kennel. “This one has fight,” he commented. The cage door slammed shut, and I became aware of the yowl I had been roaring, most likely since the wrench on my tail.
Cutting off the sound of my pain, I forced myself to look for a way out. I was trapped. Two big, clumsy dogs were my only hope.The door to the parking lot was out of sight, but I heard it open with a click and then whoosh. “Whoa!” shouted the passerby who opened it. And I was happy. For once in my life, I had done something selfless, spared not one but two fellow creatures.
In growing horror, I heard the pony-sized canines bark and jump, circling about the newcomer as he coaxed them for information. The dumb beasts needed to flee! Fools!
“What’s with the duct tape?” the man asked.
The chocolate colored beast–I could tell by his collar jingle–began to lead up the stairs, and the tan beast mimicked him. They took a few stairs and then stopped. In my mind’s eye, it was easy to imagine their doggy eyes turned in supplication for the human to follow. Humans just loved things like that. Why hadn’t I done more things that humans loved? Why had I caused Servant Lady to doubt whether I enjoyed the wet food? Why didn’t I ever simply choose to be in or out–why the lengthy internal debate she hated so much? And why, oh why, hadn’t I chosen to stay awake for one day, so that I could sleep through nights curled up with Servant Lady instead of biting her toes? Too late, I thought.
The criminals carried me down the back staircase toward the opposite exit, out of sight of the dogs and the newcomer. I suppose that I could have meowed, but I couldn’t even conjure up a baleful look at my kidnappers. I had earned this. I deserved to be taken to some dark abyss and devoured as I had once dismembered mice. For fun. I had been so cruel. I was paralyzed and mute from the guilt of my misspent life.
But I had forgotten that dogs can follow a scent trail and could hear even faint things almost as well as cats. The beasts barely slowed down at their home door, still open and enticing them to rest in safety. But no, they came for me.
Together, they jumped and they pushed down the man behind me, the one carrying an empty cage. He came tumbling into the man carrying my cage. I flung ahead, and down I went. My cage skated over the stairs, then bounced and finally tumbled around a landing. I took sets of stairs that the humans did not, I noticed. They rolled out of my view, sparing me wide-eyed looks of astonishment from their prone positions beneath the clumsy dogs before they disappeared.
I fought to hold some part of the cage and brace myself from further bruising. Perhaps I softened the worst of it, but both of my hips and my head took abuse I can only liken to a beating. The dogs pushed off the backs of the men and kept coming for me once it was clear that I’d be bouncing fully around a landing and downward from there. I continued to brace myself as upright as possible while tumbling. I thought my neck might be broken before they caught up to me, but it warmed my heart to know how much they cared.
The last thing I remember thinking was, They didn’t come for revenge on the dog-nappers. They came for me. Feeling surrounded by love, my cage came to a crashing halt on a final landing, and I was unable to avoid smashing an ear as I rammed the cage headlong. A sickening thunk reverberated through my entire skeleton. Everything dimmed to black.
***
Before I opened my eyes, I knew that I was in hell. I did not want to be in this place that smelled antiseptically like the vet’s office. So I let myself stay limp a while longer, savoring the quiet. There was no pain yet. Strangely, the heaviness that had been growing in my stomach for some weeks was no longer present. Another boon. I let myself enjoy what I could, and then I gathered my courage and opened my eyes.
“There she is,” gushed the vet. “There’s the hero who put two bad, bad men in jail and made friends with such big dogs!” She used her cooing, baby voice to speak of the beasts. Two techs were also watching me expectantly. They hardly had scents of their own. They were the smell of the vet’s office to my nose. And, of course, Servant Lady was not here. Hell indeed. I rose to my feet, surprised at how nimble I felt, ready for whatever might come next. The vet palpated my startlingly svelte abdomen. “This is strange,” she murmured. So are you, I thought nastily. “I need new abdominal imaging, but I’m sure that the cancer has at least shrunk.”
The techs’ eyes widened, mirroring the amazement I felt. One of them offered, “May I get the owner?”
Servant Lady entered crying, so I jumped into her arms. The vet explained what the head imaging had shown of my injury, what to watch for, and why she wanted to take repeat abdominal imaging. Servant Lady hugged me in the manner of Elmira Fudd–most embarrassing–and then I went off for the imaging. “Cancer free,” was the final word besides the bill total. I was light-headed at the change in prognosis, so I understood the wide-eyed wobble I saw in Servant Lady as she tapped her credit card.
***
Atop my carpeted tower once more, I looked miserably at the cardboard box that was empty. In desperate worry, I had already searched the box. My chirping, flapping sandpiper had been sacrificed for a higher good. It was not under either flap. Servant Lady had been wondering whether there could be a heaven for pets, and I hoped that if there was, I could have my robotic bird back again. It was something I could bite with no guilt, and it had been so fun. I rested my heavy head on the plush edge of the carpeted tower and dreamed of it. Servant Lady was reading Scripture again and disturbed me by reporting, “Cinnamon, there is a talking donkey in Numbers 22. The Bible is so weird.”
I feigned a disinterested sneeze, to which Servant Lady responded, “God bless you.” Then her eyes darted side to side, considering her words. She seemed to wonder–loudly, I might add–whether animals could be blessed. I felt that I was obviously blessed, but really, she had to figure it out for herself.
Servant Lady turned on the TV, but she did not show one of my Cat TV channels of squirrels, birds, and other prey scurrying about. She flipped to the news, and I recognized my human prey. An interesting channel after all. I skulked to the floor directly in front of the screen, wrapping my tail delicately over my forepaws. Both men seemed to have shrunk and were wearing metal bonds not unlike their duct taping job, except that their mouths were uncovered. I was gratified to witness my claw-mark embedded in the cheek of my worst assailant. Both men’s faces were bruised from their fall on the stairs.
The narrated line, “held without bail until their trial…” caused Servant Lady to erupt in applause. I took a defensive stance against her noisy assault, so Servant Lady leaped over the coffee table to pet and soothe me, as was my due. She plopped next to me, and I resettled.
The news anchor continued, “Apartment residents called 9-1-1 with the tip after two dogs escaped and alerted them. These dogs had duct tape bonds that appeared to be slashed, and the only apparent explanation is the cat from the neighbor’s apartment.” The anchor’s tone conveyed astonishment, as if cats’ claws were not regularly up to such a task. Yes, I agreed, I was remarkable, my paws honed to perfection. I licked and examined the formidable weapons I wore. Servant Lady booped my shoulder and pointed out my photo on the screen, as if I were an idiot. “Apartment staff confirm that the cat, Cinnamon–”
Servant Lady interjected with a stage-whispered cheer followed by exquisite head scratching. I stretched and lolled, settling on my side to view the screen once more.
The news anchor continued without pause, “must have arrived at her neighbors’ by way of the balcony, damaging a gutter on her way across the roof. Residents are now instructed to secure their balcony doors, even if they live on the top floor, as the animal-nappers came via a ladder to the same balcony.”
Just then, the brown beasts next door thundered into the hallway for their evening walk. Their happy tails hit our door like a knock, as per protocol. In another minute, we’d hear the squeak of the waste bin outside as their owners tossed beast-sized poop bags away. All was well with the world.
The first real knock at the door seemed like a mistake, as if a dog had come back to wag near the door again. The second round of knocks, though, was curious and definitely different. I sat at attention not far from the welcome mat, waiting for Servant Lady to open up and greet someone.
One of the two girls from next door was smiling just on the other side of the door. Her eyes sought me out around Servant Lady. “She’s ok!” the girl exclaimed.
“Yeah, she used up one or two of her nine lives, but she’s still here,” Servant Lady said.
“Tobias wanted her to have this back,” the girl said. Tobias, I deduced, was the chocolate-colored beast, tail-wagging beside her.
“Raphael wants her to have it, too,” the other girl protested. Servant Lady opened the door wider, revealing the other human and her beast.
From behind her back, the first girl slowly presented my robotic sandpiper. There it was! Because strangers felt I should have it back. Again, I had the overpowering sense of being surrounded by love. I sniffed, taking in my new friends and the ginger way Servant Lady accepted my toy. As soon as she set it on the floor, it flapped and chirped and showed no signs of stopping. My heart raced. I wiggled my bottom. Then, I pounced.
No, I couldn’t imagine lions and lambs lying down together. I couldn’t imagine the afterlife at all. But in that moment, had anyone asked me, I would have told them I was already in heaven.
