﷽ The cat arrived at 6:47 AM, as it had every morning for six months.

It landed on his chest with the precise weight of accumulated grievance, sat down primly, and began.

“You are awake,” said the cat, flame point, resentful, and seated directly on his chest port with the considered weight of something that had opinions about cardiovascular equipment.

Fischadler closed his eyes in what might be prayer.

“You were awake before I arrived. Your breathing changed when you heard the window. You have been awake since Fajr, which you did not pray. We will return to that.”

“I don’t know this cat,” said Fischadler, to the ceiling. “…and there is dispensation. Not that it concerns you, but I used a rock for Tayyammum.”

“How did you fit it up your nose three times?”

*”Astaghfirullāh, a’ūdhu billāhi min ash-shaytāni r-rajīm,”* replied Fischadler, eyes rolled to the ceiling in exasperation.

“Ruqyah only works on those with evil intent and you still remain here. You only endured Atticus,” said the cat. “This is Catticus. There is a meaningful distinction and I will not be having it flattened for administrative convenience.”

Fischadler said nothing. The cat flexed all four of his murder mittens dramatically.

“You have a remote,” said the cat. Green eyes steady, unimpressed, patient in the manner of something that has nowhere else to be and knows it. “It is in your left drawer. It has one button. When you press it, I arrive. You pressed it at 4 AM on the fourteenth. And the twenty-second. And the night the archive went down, when you needed someone to sit with you and could not say so to anyone with a face. Then just whenever.”

“I have never seen this animal before in my life.” Fischadler stated to the camera as he pressed the nurse bell repeatedly.

The cat placed one paw directly on his sternum with gentle, terrible precision.

“I am merely noting,” said the cat, “that your inability to acknowledge what calls me does not prevent you from calling me.”

—

The nurse who came in at 6:59 was the third rotation to draw cat removal duty. She had developed a system. Towel, firm grip, no eye contact. She’d learned about the eye contact the hard way. The eyes were green. You looked directly into green eyes like that and suddenly you were explaining yourself.

“Sir, I’m going to need to remove—”

“I got it,” said a voice from the doorway. “Go rest. Tend to the others.”

She turned to see yet another man dressed in robes, but intentionally and with a lovely scarf over one shoulder. He had a little pillbox type hat, smart glasses, and looked remarkably like BBNO$.

The nurse was from Church of England and had no concept of Islamic terminology but he seemed like a nice trustworthy fellow by his cups and willingness to handle an obstinate moggie.

Zahir stood in the doorframe with a cold paper cup of tea and the expression of a man who had been briefed on this situation by absolutely no one and understood it completely anyway.

“I’ve got it,” he said again, gently. “Chaplain Rotation.”

“Well, that sounds right proper, thank you kindly.” She left to finish her packet of crisps and return to watching reruns of Jim’ll Fix It.

[Jim was *such* a nice bloke. Dead shame what those kids said about such a fine British man. Her ma always said so. Jim bought her family a house after little Thames died shortly after the visit. Thames was always a weak lad, he had it coming. Jim was always *so* good.]

Zahir pulled the chair from the corner, set it beside the bed, and sat. He looked at the cat. The cat looked back with green-eyed patience, the particular patience of something that had been waiting for a competent witness for some time.

“Salaam,” said Zahir.

“Wa alaykum,” said the cat.

Fischadler opened his eyes. “You can hear it.”

“Yes.”

“It talks.”

“Apparently.”

“I want it noted for the record that I have consistently maintained—”

“I’ve read the notes,” said Zahir, without judgment. He looked at Fischadler steadily. “How long has it been coming.”

Fischadler said nothing.

“The nurses have a rotation. They showed me.” said Zahir. “Third rotation means this has been documented at least three weeks. The remote in your drawer suggests longer.” He paused. “How long.”

“I don’t know what remote you’re referring to.”

“Six months,” said the cat helpfully.

Zahir looked at Fischadler.

Fischadler looked at the ceiling.

“And in six months,” said Zahir, with the gentle persistence of a man who had sat with harder silences than this, “you have never once asked what it wants.”

“It’s a cat.”

“It quoted you fiqh last Tuesday,” said Zahir. “Charge Nurse filed a report.”

“That was circumstantial,” replied the cat. “He clearly forgot it, not that it matters, since I’m just a cat.”

“She wrote down the hadith reference.”

“That was Qur’an. I don’t quote Hadith. Was the nurse Church of England or something?” inquired the cat. “Besides, what sane person would write that a cat quotes hadith when it was clearly Surat Ar-Ra’d, or even ascribe religious affinity to a mere pussy such as I, anyhow.”

Fischadler closed his eyes again.

“All cats are Muslim, do you not love Muezza?” Zahir replied as Atticus glowered, then turned back to the cat with the air of a man choosing the more productive conversation. “And furthermore, the Quran was also made for jinn as much as human beings.”

The cat was quiet for a moment.

“That’s *Mister* Jinn and I am not even real by your standards. My favorite Director called me that,” explained the cat. Green eyes level.

Zahir waited. Sipped his cold Lipton.

“It doesn’t mean I’m magic. It means I smoke a considerable amount of THC for a cat and no one likes me unless I’m granting their supposed wishes.”

The cat glared narrowly.

“The moment I stopped being useful I became a nuisance arriving through doors no one could explain.”

The cat looked at Fischadler.

“Sound familiar?” said the cat. Not a question.

Zahir shook a little baggie of kitten snacks and suddenly regained the full attention of the enflamed flame point moggie.

“Tell me, oh cat of little Islamic knowledge,” said Zahir, in the tone of a man settling in, “who is your favorite Sahabah.”

The cat straightened slightly. This was, apparently, a subject.

“Khawla bint al-Azwar,” said the cat, with some dignity. “I like what they did with that tent pole.”

Zahir nodded slowly.

“Wrong,” he said.

“Wrong?” The cat stared at him. “You asked for my opinion.”

“For cats,” said Zahir pleasantly, “the correct answer is Abu Hurayra.”

Catticus flattened his ears.

“…Father of the Kitten?” said the cat.

“Indeed. He carried a cat in his sleeve. The Prophet named him for it. It’s not a complicated ruling.”

The cat processed this with the expression of someone who had prepared extensively for the wrong exam.

“Fine,” said the cat. “Abu Hurayra. But my preference should matter.”

“And which madhab is best?” said Zahir.

“Shafi’i,” said the cat, without hesitation. “Most flexible. Can borrow from any other madhab when the situation requires. Adaptable to conditions on the ground.” A pause. “Though I fail to understand why you’re asking a useless cat about Islam.”

“Because,” said Zahir, “you’re the one who showed up.”

The cat had no immediate answer for this.

“Do you know the Shahadah?” said Zahir.

“*La ilaha illa Allah, Muhammadun Rasul Allah,*” said the cat, in a tone suggesting this was beneath the question. “But that’s common knowledge. Why ask a cat, when a cat isn’t the chosen species of Allah, unlike Beni Adam over there, who apparently believes that calling something a name makes it true because he said it.”

Zahir glanced at Fischadler, who had developed a sudden intense interest in the middle distance.

“What did he call you,” said Zahir.

“That’s offensive and I’m not repeating it.”

“But you’ll claw him in the face about it.”

“Repeatedly,” said the cat.

“Every morning for six months.”

“Correct.”

Zahir looked at Fischadler. “What did you call this cat.”

“I don’t know what you’re referring to. There is no cat.”

The cat’s green eyes moved to Fischadler with the patience of something prepared to wait indefinitely on this particular point.

“I see,” said Zahir. He folded his hands. “How did you get here,” he said to the cat.

The cat shifted its weight. Something in its posture changed, not evasive. More careful.

“I fell asleep,” said the cat, “on a plane stuck in Arizona. Now I’m a cat in London again.”

Zahir looked at it steadily. “So you’re asleep.”

The cat looked back, green eyes catching the morning light from the window.

“Are you?” said the cat.

The room was quiet.

Outside in the corridor a cart wheeled past. Morning rounds. The ordinary world proceeding on its ordinary axis, unaware that a fiqh consultation was currently being conducted between a hospital chaplain and a green-eyed cat sitting on the chest of a man who had been calling it nightly for six months while maintaining, each morning, that he had never seen it before.

Zahir picked up his cold tea, looked at it, and set it back down.

He took out his phone.

—

Somewhere in the American Southwest, stuck for hours on a scorching tarmac, Garrett Butler of the Mangoes was experiencing what he would later describe as a completely routine flight, which meant nothing about it was routine and he had been managing the situation since Heathrow.

Atticus was asleep across two seats with his suit jacket over his face, which was fine, except that approximately forty minutes ago he had started muttering fiqh questions in his sleep, which was less fine, and had recently gone quiet in the specific way that suggested he was either resolving something or about to claw someone in a timezone he wasn’t physically located in.

Garrett’s phone buzzed.

Zahir.

He answered.

“He’s asleep,” said Garrett.

“I know,” said Zahir. “I’m looking at him.”

Garrett looked at Atticus. Atticus’s jacket moved slightly with his snoring. He appeared to be, by all observable metrics, on a plane in Arizona.

*”Astaghfirullāh, ask Muezza. I am clearly worthless as both feline and fakyr, you absolute raspberry…”* Atticus muttered miserably then resumed snoring.

“…Right,” said Garrett. “So he’s not talking to himself after all, is he?”

“No. Wake him up,” said Zahir. “Gently. He’s been there long enough.”

—

Garrett reached over and removed the jacket from Atticus’s face.

Atticus opened his eyes. Blinked. Looked at the aircraft ceiling with the expression of a man triangulating which plane of existence he was currently required to operate in. His eyes were green. They always took a moment to remember where they were.

“Phoenix,” said Garrett. “We have to disembark.”

Atticus sat up slowly. Looked at his hands. Present. Accounted for. Regrettably human-shaped.

“The captain,” said Garrett, with the careful tone of a man delivering information he had not yet fully processed himself, “has invited us to his crash pad.”

“Above the Juggalo Montessori, no doubt,” groaned Atticus.

“He said something to that effect. My question is, is that,” said Garrett slowly, “a method of education, or an ethnic group. I understand Montessori. But what is a Juggalo.”

“There is a song,” said Atticus, “that explains exactly what a Juggalo is but you don’t like music.”

“I like some music.”

“You won’t like this music. It isn’t a nasheed.”

“ICP,” said the captain, with quiet conviction, “isn’t music. It’s a way of life.”

He was tall, tan, handsome, and resembled a subcontinent ubermensch with vocal fry.

“Not my way of life,” the captain quickly clarified, “but the bed at the Fairchilde Murderface palace is cheap and they have Faygo on tap and free Takis.  But hey, that’s normal with ICP dudes.”

Garrett looked at the captain for a long moment with the expression of a man performing a rapid threat assessment that had returned ambiguous results.

“That,” said Garrett, “is like discovering a stain of uncertain origin on an otherwise acceptable surface.” He paused. “When you see pee or other najis, you should gently blot it with a towel, careful not to rub it in further, but thankfully, urine is otherwise sterile.”

The captain nodded slowly, in the manner of a man who had become accustomed to enthusiastic misunderstandings.

Atticus stood, retrieved his jacket, and looked out the window at Phoenix pavement spread flat and black below the terminal, the sun doing what the Arizona sun does to everything, which is insist upon its own superior standing above human comfort.

“Zahir called,” said Garrett.

“I know,” said Atticus.

“He said you’d been stuck as an angry London Moggie long enough.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” Atticus straightened his jacket. Looked at the captain. “Anyway, Does the Murderface Montessori have a jacuzzi?”

“Vast,” said the captain. “Also a ball pit.”

“For the children?”

“Mostly.”

Atticus considered this with green eyes that had seen considerably worse… likely in London.

“Fine,” he said. “Murderface Mansion filled with tiny juggalo children sounds absolutely safe, undramatic, perfectly normal and delightful.”

“Can we perform Dawah for the juggling children?” said Garrett.

“Juggalo. Children.” sighed Atticus 

“Only if you start with Miracles,” replied the pilot, then turned to Atticus. “Speaking of which, do you still have my Richard Bach book I lent you in 2002?”

“That was Illusions, not Miracles.” replied Atticus

“Hey, catch this: Allah is closer than your Juggalo veins… think that will fly?” inquired Mango

“As well as this flight made it to Tulsa.”

“We’re in Phoenix”

“My point exactly.”

—

*Chronicles of Alaraf 🌹*