03-05-2024, 08:29 PM
An old, rickety mid century house stands alone near the edge of a dissolving beach cliff. Light blue wood planks chipped and rotted barely holding on to a faded white frame swell and distort under the smell of sea salt. Here the setting sun reflecting on the water gives the house an old, incandescent glow beneath the facade of distance. Standing guard at the door is a copy of an 8th grade teacher, her skin sallow sagging, as delicate as wet paper. She is offering two bottles of shampoo and conditioner for your frayed ends. Should you decline immediately on entering the house you’ll look like a black cat to everyone there. Some say that’s bad luck, but I have always been fond of cats no matter the fur.
It would seem this form lends a certain advantage, as travel becomes quick and silent like a ghost. No need for soft creaky stairs barely holding their own weight; rafters and secret holes in the ceilings are much more providential. Groups of individuals huddled on each floor, heads bowed together intoning secrets wouldn’t likely notice a cat creeping from one side of the ceiling to the other, between holes in the walls; stopping on a mezzanine facing west to observe the rising tides below.
The top story is exceptionally simple; a black rug, a slide and a princess costume, for anyone who wanted to feel special sliding back down to their teacher after sojourning the ruined interior of the estate. Such frivolities are boring to the point of excess, never mind any of that. I’m here for something in the floorboards he said, someone you never noticed watching cats. Taking a hammer to the ground he pried enthusiastically apart until a moment of fevered discovery. Aha! Finally, the source of madness. He showed you a sky blue tablet, about 7 inches squared, indented and shaped with all sorts of strange pictographs. People, animals, nature, anything could be seen in that brilliant soft blue.
The house crumbled from the bottom up but a pillar of dust and pressure kept the top story wholly intact as it landed on the earth. Outside was another group of young men in cloaks, heads bowed in conspiracy together. So lads, what’s the game plan? Their chests became gift card cabinets and were immobilized by the sheer weight of steel. Giant faces and fearful figures projected on clouds looked down at all of this, looking up had become a kind of blasphemy of itself.
The tablet let him see weather and comets around the earth form and dissipate in giant ice domes around Asia. Crawling into the mouth of a nearby cave it was set upon a stand that projected a hologram of the earth complete with its various weather patterns. By the time they caught up the tunnel was already sealed that led to the houses. All the kids saw us come out behind the sports club with the tablet, even though you didn’t want to be seen as a cat. I think it had worn off by then but truly they got so tired of their parents bullshit and timed temper tantrums that by the next morning they all ran around the block, faces pressed and warped tightly under Saran Wrap, flailing arms and shaking heads to wake the neighbors up. People talking on their cellphones walking pets in my front yard gathered, hundreds of them under guise.
They were coming. We could all feel it in the air, the frisson of electric suffering inevitably ceasing in isolation. I smashed the tablet to pieces in front of him and a thin triangle section remained perfectly shaped. He put it back into the floorboard and the cabinet slid open from behind, revealing an entire arsenal of sky blue weaponry. I was so nervous in anticipation I tried showing you how to fight with a pocket knife because we already ran out of axes for the town. But by the time I got out no one had been hit with arrows, and all that was left were the dogs. Instead of fighting they were playing with the dogs, throwing tennis balls and videotaping them to show their friends. In disappointment and disbelief I bent over backwards and crawled in the mud back home with you on my chest.
Turning yourself into a dog doesn’t really seem like a great battle strategy you told me,
Yeah big talk coming from a cat.
It would seem this form lends a certain advantage, as travel becomes quick and silent like a ghost. No need for soft creaky stairs barely holding their own weight; rafters and secret holes in the ceilings are much more providential. Groups of individuals huddled on each floor, heads bowed together intoning secrets wouldn’t likely notice a cat creeping from one side of the ceiling to the other, between holes in the walls; stopping on a mezzanine facing west to observe the rising tides below.
The top story is exceptionally simple; a black rug, a slide and a princess costume, for anyone who wanted to feel special sliding back down to their teacher after sojourning the ruined interior of the estate. Such frivolities are boring to the point of excess, never mind any of that. I’m here for something in the floorboards he said, someone you never noticed watching cats. Taking a hammer to the ground he pried enthusiastically apart until a moment of fevered discovery. Aha! Finally, the source of madness. He showed you a sky blue tablet, about 7 inches squared, indented and shaped with all sorts of strange pictographs. People, animals, nature, anything could be seen in that brilliant soft blue.
The house crumbled from the bottom up but a pillar of dust and pressure kept the top story wholly intact as it landed on the earth. Outside was another group of young men in cloaks, heads bowed in conspiracy together. So lads, what’s the game plan? Their chests became gift card cabinets and were immobilized by the sheer weight of steel. Giant faces and fearful figures projected on clouds looked down at all of this, looking up had become a kind of blasphemy of itself.
The tablet let him see weather and comets around the earth form and dissipate in giant ice domes around Asia. Crawling into the mouth of a nearby cave it was set upon a stand that projected a hologram of the earth complete with its various weather patterns. By the time they caught up the tunnel was already sealed that led to the houses. All the kids saw us come out behind the sports club with the tablet, even though you didn’t want to be seen as a cat. I think it had worn off by then but truly they got so tired of their parents bullshit and timed temper tantrums that by the next morning they all ran around the block, faces pressed and warped tightly under Saran Wrap, flailing arms and shaking heads to wake the neighbors up. People talking on their cellphones walking pets in my front yard gathered, hundreds of them under guise.
They were coming. We could all feel it in the air, the frisson of electric suffering inevitably ceasing in isolation. I smashed the tablet to pieces in front of him and a thin triangle section remained perfectly shaped. He put it back into the floorboard and the cabinet slid open from behind, revealing an entire arsenal of sky blue weaponry. I was so nervous in anticipation I tried showing you how to fight with a pocket knife because we already ran out of axes for the town. But by the time I got out no one had been hit with arrows, and all that was left were the dogs. Instead of fighting they were playing with the dogs, throwing tennis balls and videotaping them to show their friends. In disappointment and disbelief I bent over backwards and crawled in the mud back home with you on my chest.
Turning yourself into a dog doesn’t really seem like a great battle strategy you told me,
Yeah big talk coming from a cat.
