Miracle On Lawrence Road -- Linda Krawecke
Having included a car tale it was inevitable that a cat tale should follow. However Linda Krawecke doesn't exactly write an average story about cute felines. Funny as this is I think it has an edge of truth to it that most anybody who has lived with a cat will appreciate.
The day my cats talked I wished they would shut up. By some cosmic mischance Rastus and Antny were given the gift of speech. Not intellect, just speech. It all began around seven one Saturday morning, when I was wakened by what I thought were neighbourhood kids playing outside.
"Wheeee! Hup hup hup! Nyaaaaa! I'll get you I'll get you I'll get you!"
This combined with the cats stampeding up and down the hallway outside the bedroom was almost enough to wake me, but I struggled back to sleep. Just as I was drifting off again I heard the sound of little voices at the bedroom door.
"Lemme in lemme in lemme in, I want in now, in now, now in, now now now…"
I was scared. Were there crazy little dwarves trying to break into our bedroom? With considerable trepidation I got up and opened the door a little. The two cats came barging in, yelling at each other.
"Me first me first me first." hollered Antny, leaping over Rastus' more lumbering form. "Get away from me, I hate you," was the snarled reply.
"Nyaaa, you old fart, watch this, I'll jump on the grumpy one's face!"
Antny leaped around the room like a maniac. That, at least, was nothing unusual. I suppose I should have been more surprised than I was, but somehow nothing happening in our house amazes me too much anymore. "Greg," I said, "I think the cats are acting weirder than usual."
"Nothing amazes me any more," he replied, swatting the hyper-active Antny across the room. "He hit me he hit me, why'd he do that? Why why why?" squealed the younger cat, prancing around my feet and looking up at me with his funny crossed eyes.
"Serves you right," said Rastus, "you little jerk," and hunched on the dresser like a furry meatloaf.
Greg started some serious staring vacantly at the ceiling, so I went out to the kitchen for a strong coffee, rapidly followed by Antny. "Food food food food food food…" It was awful. Then Rastus hunched along. "Feed me now, I'm older, I'm bigger, I need more food, feed me first!"
"Food food food food!" wailed Antny, I doled out the catfood and left rapidly, their gluttonous garbled grunts being even more appalling than their begging and whining.
By the time Greg got up I'd attempted a conversation with the suddenly gifted cats. "It's weird," I told him. "They can speak. They have a full English vocabulary it seems. They just don't have anything to say. They have an advanced physical skill with absolutely no enhanced mental ability."
"Um," he replied and poked Rastus with his foot. The cat half opened his eyes and rolled over on his back with his legs sticking out in all directions. "Go away, I can't be bothered, I'm asleep anyway." Greg gave me a look which indicated he felt nothing had changed in the slightest.
"A rat a rat rat rat!" screamed Antny and leaped off the sofa to dig all his claws and teeth into Greg's foot. Greg kicked him across the room and he started complaining again. "Why'd he do that? Why why why…"
"God, Gregory," I said, "don't set him off like that again."
"Why why why, huh huh huh?"
"He seems to say everything in threes," I observed. "Isn't that the sign of a true idiot?"
"Um," Greg responded, in a far superior form of singular communication.
We tried to carry on the day as normal, but it wasn't easy with a couple oF stupid quarrelling hungry cats constantly sounding off. It was so much more difficult to ignore them now they were talking real words. I had to actually have a rational argument with Rastus when I wanted him to move when I was going to vacuum the living room floor, and while I was in the kitchen Antny came crashing in through the catdoor followed by three of his cat friends.
"This is the food place," he said to them. "I come here a lot and yell Food Food Food and food comes into my bowl. Sometimes it doesn't and I have to yell more. Watch this - food food food food…" It was hell. I chased the other cats back outside and left Antny prancing about yelling "Why why why?" So I went back and pushed him out the cat door too and heard him shouting "Bird bird bird!" as he scampered down the steps.
Back in the living room Rastus and Greg were arguing. Goddammit Rastus this is my chair, and I'm gonna sit in it whenever I like."
"No, my chair, I warmed it up, my chair my chair, I'm here now!" It was so much like a comic-book I couldn't stand it. I walked out of the room to the sound of Rastus being flung unceremoniously to the floor.
By evening we were truly fed up with the chatter of idiot voices. We tried shutting them out of the living room but they complained so loudly I was afraid the neighbours would think we were being cruel to children so I had to let them in. We were having our dinners and the cats started their act right away. "Food food food," chanted Antny, staring cross-eyed up at Greg, who almost batted him away until he remembered the consequences, so threw scraps of food at his head instead. Rastus sat right next to me, staring fixedly at my plate.
"Looks good," he said. "Smells good." He inched closer, sniffing the edge of my plate. I tried to ignore him. "Gimme gimme gimmeeeee," he whined, lifting a paw slowly towards the food. "Just that bit there right on the side under my nose." I slapped his snatching paw away, and he grunted grumpily before beginning the whole act again. "No, Rastus, this is my food, go away!" He just looked at me. In desperation I threw a bit across the room to get rid of him but it ended up a fight between Rastus and Antny for it. The racket drowned out the tv, it was even worse than the jets overhead. I ate the rest of my dinner locked in the bathroom.
It wasn't too bad later. They went to sleep. It was almost like normal except that Rastus would occasionally ask me to scratch his chin or rub his belly, and Antny would suddenly leap up shouting "Rat rat rat!" and run around the room aimlessly for a few minutes before falling down and going back to sleep again immediately. Towards midnight though something strange happened. Both cats woke up. "It's here," said Rastus.
"Where where where?"
"There," Rastus replied, staring at a space halfway up the wall, behind me.
"I see it I see it I see it!"
"What are they talking about, Greg?"
"I dunno. They're looking at the wall behind you. I can't see anything there, but they can. This is what I was afraid of."
"What?" I said, feeling a bit apprehensive.
"There it goes," said Rastus, and both cats followed the invisible 'it' with their eyes. I felt the hair rise up all over my body.
"Don't move," said Rastus, "if you don't move it won't see you."
"Why does it come here, why why why?"
"Greg, what is it, what're they doing?"
"They're staring at nothing. Oh shit."
Both cats started a rhythmic chant, "Go back go back go back and don't return! Go back go back go back and don't return…"
Greg and I sat in amazed silence until their chant stopped.
"Where does it go to, where where where?"
Don't know, you just have to make it go away with the words," said Rastus.
"Snake snake snake," screamed Antny, and leaped onto Rastus' tail, showing his short attention span if nothing else. Whatever it was had happened seemed more strange to us than to the cats.
Calm reigned for the rest of the night, comparatively. It soon became clear that with the gift of speech the cats had also gained much louder snores. When we couldn't stand it any longer we went to bed, but not without another frantic bout of "Food food food, feed me now now now." When we eventually shut ourselves into the bedroom I listened to them bickering fiercely as they leaped up and down the hallway and cantered up and down the stairs. Later on Rastus jumped up onto the bannister post and sang. "Moooon. Big white moon. White as milk moon." It was almost wonderful. I fell asleep.
The next day everything was back to normal. The cats came into the bedroom with meows and purrs and snorts and yowls. But I knew what they were saying. Seems like I always knew.
Miracle On Lawrence Road is reprinted from Tiger Tea #2 -- Ed. Linda Krawecke (1985) and is © Linda Krawecke