CATSPIRACY THEORY

 

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Chapter One

I’m not sure where my story begins. I thought it was a joke. Whenever he said it, I laughed. His sense of humor was always dry and many times it would be hard to tell when he was being witty and when he was being serious. It was that way with his outbursts, too, but I came to understand them. Well, sort of. Sometimes, I just didn’t get the outbursts, but because I didn’t seek out confrontation, we let that part of our lives go undiscussed.

Oh, I am sorry. Here I am, trying desperately to justify my lack of action and you still have no idea what I’m talking about. It’s a habit of mine. Come to think of it, I don’t know when that started. Perhaps it was his influence, because that was something else he did fairly often, too. Now, that would get on my nerves and I would let him know it, too often sometimes…

I’m losing you, aren’t I? All right. I’ll get to the point. Gary, that would be my missing husband, would say to me that cats were from another planet, sent here to observe the human race and were reporting back to the mother ship. Laughable, right? I thought so, so I laughed. I always laughed when he said it and I would even counter with some sarcastic remark, confirming his suspicions. I never took it as fact.

I’m doing it again? What am I doing? Oh, you are referring to the “missing husband” remark? I thought you knew about that. It was big in the news just about a year ago. True, they changed his name and used a false photo. I don’t know why they did that, but it may have been their interference. I should have listened.

“There are times you don’t seem to take me seriously about this,” he said one day.

“I do,” I said as earnestly as I could, but I’m sure the crocked slant to my face gave me away. “I do agree. In fact, I think I know where their communication device is.” Our two cats and dog gathered around me when I said this. I thought they were interested in the treats I had for them. Only now, I realize the significance of the event.

He studied me. Cautiously, he persisted, “Where?”

“Under the toilet.”

“You don’t believe me,” he turned back to cleaning the dishes.

“No, really,” I continued. “That knob under the toilet that you think is a shut-off valve for the water is really the activator they installed.” Ebby growled and immediately Aja reached out and swatted her.

The water splashed out of the sink and he stared at me considering, but I thought he was joining in on the fun, “And here I thought I’ve shut off the water using that valve before.”

“No, no, no,” I continued on in my rant. “That’s what you think. You see, the whole time, you thought the water was turned off, one of the aliens,” I gestured to the gathering, “was using their mind control to stop the water from flowing.” Now Aja shrieked and Forte bit her ear.

“Oh, haha,” he quipped.

Surely, you see how ridiculous it sounds? Ah, I do remember those days of blissful ignorance. But the innocence has vanished in a puff of smoke, police sergeants, detectives, lawyers, bankruptcy and failed friendships. I see I’ve lost you again. It will take a while to explain and even longer to convince you.

This is how desperate I am and sure of the sincerity of my evidence. In order to relay this information in a logical and well thought out manner, I’ve set up a special place for me to detail what I’ve learned. It wasn’t easy setting up this secret space, a place where they won’t find me. What am I saying, nothing has been easy. Since the incident, they have kept me under close surveillance and I’m certain that some human secret service organization has been close on my tail as well. Tail, ha… I made a funny. Seriously, I can only afford so much time per installment of this memoir and I’ll never know if it will ever see the light of day. But I care about my human companions and feel I must somehow get the truth out there. You must believe me!

I will admit it was my fault the cats came to live with us in the first place, but then Gary never has any suspicions about any other animals, just cats. Just for the record, he never harmed any animal in his life and that may have been the reason he was easy to abduct, his sensitive nature. He had lived with both cats and dogs in his childhood home. But it didn’t take him long to develop a healthy mistrust of the small feline derivative of the larger versions currently living on this planet. Gary is… (sigh) was a good man, hopefully still is a good man. I only hope they realize that.

We met at a restaurant. We were both sitting alone and our orders were swapped. “I believe this is your salad,” he said delivering the plate to me with a napkin draped over his arm in a mock attempt at looking like a five star waiter.

I laughed, “You’re the patty melt?”

“Just call me Melt,” he offered with a dazzling smile.

He joined me at my table and we spent the rest of the day there, closing the restaurant. He insisted on driving me home. That became a joke over the years, because it meant leaving my car at the restaurant. He always said it was an excuse to pick me up the next morning and drive back to get my car, but he never left my apartment that night. Yes, it was magical, need I say more? And, before you say it, I’m no tart!

He had flexible hours because he did voice-over work. I had a dreaded nine-to-five and spent a lot of time doing volunteer work with wild and domestic animal rescues. When we first proposed living together, just a few short months after we met, love was in the air and very thick, so small factors like animals in the home, religion or politics never entered into our minds. If truth is to be told, it was more about the mutual attraction and about the sex.

Soon the lust wears off and you begin building a home together. I wanted animals in the house. He thought it would be best if I just concentrated on my volunteer work and left it at that. I thought he was worried about competition for my affection and wasn’t amenable to his counter offer, so I demanded he rethink his approach. He suggested a nice goldfish. I raised the ante with the idea of another apartment for him. In the end, he didn’t forbid me, probably seeking my approval in some male way. He agreed to dogs and we took in a lovely little miniature doxie, named Ebby. She was amazingly adorable, but she became lonely when we left for work.

His mistake was getting ill and sending me to the pet store, an errand he normally ran himself. I had no idea the pet store had adoption days. He did. Upon approaching the store and seeing the multitude of cages, I felt it appropriate to introduce an addition to our household, adopting a cat from the rescue that I fell in love with. When I brought Aja home he recoiled.

“This wasn’t on our shopping list!” punctuating his exclaiming with a thunderous sneeze.

“Gesundheit,” I offered and finished with, “No, it wasn’t, but I’m an impulse buyer.”

“But the rescue group is only there on Tuesdays and not Wednesdays,” he coughed emphatically.

I had to point out, “You’re obviously not feeling well and it is indeed Tuesday, not Wednesday.” I checked his temperature, he pushed me away.

Eventually he warmed to her. She was a beautiful mixed breed, a silver point Siamese tabby with luscious blue eyes. Who would have ever thought she was conspiring against us. I still can’t imagine it. She was our adorable Aja and Ebby’s friend. They did everything together, but then Gary, nor I, knew about the involvement of dogs in this conspiracy. But that point will come later. Later that same year, Forte fell out of a tree in front of our apartment. Well, that’s what he wanted us to think, wasn’t it. He was called in as reinforcement. He was promptly and expertly scooped up by yours truly, welcoming a small black and white male kitten to the clan.

Fast forward to fifteen years later and several additions to our home, a changing of the guard you might say. Our lives were very different. We had a modest abode in the middle of a Los Angeles suburb, with five cats and two dogs, a potentially ruthless combination. The cast of cats, from oldest to youngest, are Kawaii (13 years old, famale), Endora (9, female), Baby (3, female) and her two kittens Tevye (2, male) and Tova (2, male). The dogs are Warwick (5, male) and Dame (4, female). From my perspective, all of our animals tolerated each other. Warwick and Dame were friendly and played casually with one another as dogs tend to do. We had witnessed them curling up to one another and were generally friendly. In our kitty kingdom, the girls could be at odds, as well as the occasional cordial to each other, but never more than that. Baby was, as one would expect, closer to her children than to any of the others and could be hostile toward the dogs. The boys would play all the time, sometimes very roughly and caused several outbursts, from us of annoyance and genuine laughter. That was the diversion.

They had everything they wanted, from our point of view; toys, cuddles, love, food, space, everything we’ve been told is necessary to make any animal’s existence an enjoyable one. And as one would expect, occasionally things would go missing; an odd sock, a favorite toy, a daily vitamin container, a laser pointer… You know, the usual stuff. The trouble came to a head with the vitamin container.

We each had our own container that we refilled each Sunday morning and kept at our places at the breakfast table. I can’t say we were as religious in taking our vitamins as we should be, but we did better than most, I suppose. We had gone out to breakfast with friends on Saturday morning, so that morning’s vitamins were not disposed of. Sunday morning we got up and broke into our customary routine, heading out into the kitchen to start our breakfast, figuring we’d take Saturday’s pills and restock after breakfast. Gary filled our coffee cups and heated them up in the microwave as I cut up an apple for each of us and toasted some bread.

We shuffled over to the table, placing our sustenance in the traditional places and leaned over our plates to digest the food in front of us, with heavy eyelids and minds reaching back to the warm bed we had just abandoned. I reached for the pill box and grabbed at nothing, with Gary watching my hand out of habit. His eyes flew open.

“Where are your vitamins?”

I reached again and grabbed a large chunk of air. Unwillingly I forced my eyes to focus. “I don’t know,” I mumbled wearily, “I think they transported it to the mother ship for evaluation,” I lazily returned to my apple, not nearly as concerned as he was.

“You think?”

“Yup, sure do. Tomorrow, they’ll return it through the transporter and as long as the coordinates are right, it should land about .002 degrees from center, or if they haven’t calibrated the machine in a while, it will appear at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.” Baby dropped the treat I had thrown to her. Warwick threw up.

“Oh gross,” Gary exclaimed.

I just gagged and turned away. “It’s your turn,” I managed trying to get the picture to evaporate from my mind.

“Thanks my lovely wife,” he answered sardonically.

“Always happy to be of assistance.”

That afternoon, Gary was out in the back garden, mowing the lawn, while I tended to some household chores and cooking. While the chicken was baking, I made the beds and began vacuuming the floor. Something was caught on the chord, so I pushed the vacuum into its upright position, left it running and turned back down the hallway to see what was going on. I passed the open office doorway and glanced in. The sight that met my eyes as I passed the door amazed me. I stopped dead in my tracks. Every single one of our animals was huddled together in a circle on the floor, facing one another.

“You keep acting like that and you’ll really make your Daddy believe in his jokes,” I said laughing at them. They were all looking back and soon my laughter died away. A cold shiver ran down my spine. I looked back. I looked away and then back again. “Nah,” I said aloud. Tevye tried to distract me but sitting up and cocking his head, but it seemed all wrong. My brain raced, analyzing the possibilities, running through each permutation, each solution and every time I came up with a “does not compute”. I shook my head. “Not bloody likely,” I muttered and pressed on.

At about 2:00… no… I remember the time exactly. It was 2:11 in the afternoon, I was ready for lunch and so was, much its chagrin, the chicken. I prepped two plates of food, hid them in the cupboard, so that we would be able to enjoy the food instead of our fur children and walked through to the backyard to summon my other half. The mower was sitting in the middle of the lawn, but he was nowhere to be seen.

“Gary,” I called at the top of my voice. There was no response. I walked around the house, garden and even out into the street. His car was parked in front of the house and no one was about. I went back indoors and called his cell phone.

Guess where the ringtone was coming from. No, really, guess. The bathroom. The cats beat me to the guest lavatory and batted his ringing phone out into the hallway, but by then I knew. Deep down I knew. You see, Gary is a creature of habit. If he had come in from outside to use the toilet, he would have used the master bathroom and he is not attached to his phone the way most people are, even less so than me. What could I possibly do?

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