“What happened to you? What are you doing collapsed in my field this time, Astaghfirullah. if it’s that psychopath Schopenhauer drinking antifreeze again, I’ll be pissed.” …complained Bird as he lightly hopped down from his sleeping spot, right in the straw in the back of the jeans of a dilapidated scarecrow.
Despite looking nearly identical to Muezza except in colouring, Bird was not naturally Manx. His tail was flat out amputated to make him intentionally resemble Muezza more, however, the unexpected result to the humans is Bird lost all Tameness and could snap on anyone at anytime, especially after his only kitten, Sunshine, was assigned to a different laboratory.
When Muezza tried to console him by saying “I have lost more kittens than I can count, there is always next season!” in his absolute, most friendly voice, Bird absolutely lost all composure, bit him as hard as he could, screeched, and wasn’t seen for days except for the horrid noises he made killing endless piles of rats while reciting the unfairness of his life story to the crows he barely registered as associates.
Right now, He was on the ground poking Calico repeatedly with his paw.
“Hey, Fish. You are messing up my clean dirt with your shed fur. You really don’t seem okay”
“I saw Lion’s apartment.”
“So?”
“Everything you thought you knew about Schopenhauer is a lie; the scratches, the bites, the… destruction. Spray two furry cats down with fabreze and toss them into a dark drawer for hours, days, and even weeks. Everything smells of piss and tuna.”
“Well, duh.” replied Bird, “That’s the state of the Dean in this institution.”
“‘Oh, I see Schopenhauer was a bad cat again!” the Dean would say… as Schopenhauer sleeps on concrete while the entire apartment Lion once lived looked, and smelled like the inside of that drawer but was covered in fancy cushions and couches, and fancy pet beds. But the stains! The deep scratches, litter, and nonsense all everywhere. Then. A human came and cleaned it all up perfectly…”
“…Keep it brief, get to the point, Fish”
“Okay Schopenhauer junior, two sentences: She cleaned, he immediately tore down the curtains, pissed on the floor and said ‘Ah, much better.’…and then I discovered he was trained and rewarded to hurt us all.”
“How do you know that?”
“He told me. When I saw the apartment, he said ‘Please, don’t leave me… let me explain’ and I was able to spend two weeks of him showing me the passages from the Dean’s office to the torture labs…Old man Tuna stopped feeding him and Lion was able to get out some at the end, but then… his heart just died.”
“He kicked it pretty good. We all do what we gotta to survive. Me? I’m a high-class sort of cat and used to the finer things in life. Caviar, Yak milk breakfast, live caught goldfish in crystal bowls…and I was disenfranchised to here. I should be a Dean’s cat, and do you want to know why I’m not?”
“He took your daughter.”
“He Stole my Daughter from me, we were Bonded. There is no replacement for a feline bond. He broke us to make her fatherless and easier to control by others’ later. She gave up on seeking my protection, I can’t get to her lab or they will kill me or torture us like you and that Persian”
“Watch it, he’s one of the only cats that still cares about you.”
“I don’t need anyone to care about me, I’d rather freeze.”
“How many personalities did they give you, Bird?”
“Only one, but the self is a multifaceted creature-form and I can view the world with many, distinct lenses.”
Calico flicked his tail.
“Okay. Six, but only two suck and only one of them kinda hates you.”
“Thanks, Bird. I love you too. The same way I love a very pretty cactus. I appreciate your thorns. Let’s not hug.”
Calico actually sat himself into a loaf, with paws neatly tucked, rather than a puddle after that statement.
“So…What’s up? …Really?”
“Lion died from a starvation induced heart attack, and the officer that adopted Muezza reported him”
“So what?”
“Without him to run the experiments on the other cats, and with his state at death, everything is blown wide open. They even replaced the Dean with an old monk who used to teach environmental ethics to turn the campus into veterinary medicine.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“They asked Schopenhauer to become lab cat in Lion’s place?”
“Did he accept?”
“I don’t know, I ran away and am afraid to go back.”
“That makes no sense”
“The new Dean… he can turn into a cat. He knows the library room. He knows me…I didn’t know he could cat. and…and…and…”
“and what?”
“He found me and Schopenhauer asleep. I woke up, saw him, screamed ‘I AM NEUTERED & USELESS, BUT YOU CAN HAVE HIM. ENJOY THE LAB”
“Did you mean it?”
“Neutered part, yes… the rest, No.”
“Was there more to the conversation?”
“Just me freaking out and the poor old white cat looking at me with pity. I couldnt even look at Ibn Arabi”
“It could be worse”
“I hate myself.”
“You aren’t the best, but you are better Conversation than a dead Lion.”
“Ouch. Jealous much?”
“No, factual. Your conversation is actually productive because you are upset about a cat that is actually alive.”
“I am overwhelmed & scared. I am easy to discard and really don’t want to be at the college at all.”
“So why are you there?”
“Schopenhauer. He can’t leave, he’s wired like Lion was.”
“Why did you run away, really?”
“I don’t want to be put into a different drawer so Schopenhauer can be king as I get treated the same as always.”
“Breathe.” said Bird
“No. Hyperventilating is my present expertise. I trusted Lion, he sold out everyone, and he and Schopenhauer are…I mean they were…I mean, how can he tell me for years how he loved someone to frame them and then act like nothing… and the universe is like, “Here, Ibn Arabi, Here, now YOU can be head torturer”
“You don’t even know if he wants the position, or if it would be a bad thing.”
“You don’t know what the administration was like here before Old Man Tuna…. It was…”
“undoubtedly worse,” replied Bird. “But at least it isn’t Chicago.”
*********************
The Chronicals of Alaraf 