"Part I: The Cat"

Instructions

Part I: The Cat “Our home was a quiet place, sir, tucked deep within the wood. Father called it his ‘Garden of Eden’. His sanctuary to be kept pure and free of the sins of the world. In this place we would want for nothing; Father was quite diligent in his care for us. He would hunt for wild game while the rest of us tended the small garden for our fruits and greens. There were fifteen of us in all, though none had seen their sixteenth year. Wolf-he was our eldest brother, the first child Father had saved from the wickedness of man. He was our pillar, you see. A proper leader. We all naturally looked to him because he was playful and kind, yet firm when he needed to be. His calm was a great comfort to us, especially when your ‘hellfire’ started roaring in the distance. We were quite certain, yes quite certain that we were safe from your ‘war’ so long as we remained in Father’s care and stayed within the walls of his home.” “It was all a lie sir, a grand, terrible lie. Truth has entered like a thick fog, undeniable, inevitable, suffocating. I first saw it the day Wolf was presented to us-you’ve seen the state of his face, so you will know well enough what I mean. Father told us quite gently that Wolf had nearly run off to join that ‘hellfire’ in the distance. He said our brother was becoming an ‘evil man,’ but he assured us he had been ‘fixed’ so he could be safe again. Naturally, we had believed every word. When a child is no older than five, his father is his entire world. His word was law, and Wolf had been a lawbreaker. But I am not a child anymore, sir. I had now seen his lies for what they were. His ‘gentleness’ and supposed kindness…all foul like curdled milk…Truly it made me sick to my stomach. Three more were next. They broke his laws, and three more were ‘stitched’. Songbird was only five years old at the time sir…Fox and Lamb tried to save her from that house, to get her away from him, and for all their trouble…they were ‘fixed’ too.” “Rabbit! She was pure she-!....I was the sixth. I simply grew tired of it all, sir. The walls of the house felt too small, the very air seemed to burn and Father’s ‘gentleness’ felt…all too wrong. He used to praise me, you see. He told me he believed I would remain pure, that I was better than Wolf and the others. That I didn’t need a rabbit…It made me feel quite ill so I ran. I decided I would see this ‘evil’ of yours for myself. I would have rather borne witness to a real war than to live another day in that hell. But Father is a hunter, and to a man like him what am I but another animal to be caught? That was my fate. I was brought back, I was ‘fixed’, and I was now Cat.” “It was quite hopeless, sir. Completely and utterly. Father had established himself as God in that house, and who were we to resist him? We were simply creatures of his own imaginations, subject to his whims and wicked delusions. We were Father’s children. And so I kept to my room. I sat alone by the highest window and I read, doing my best to drown out misery with Bach. That was when I heard it, sir. Even through the music, the sound was sharp-piercing and quite inevitable. A whistle in the air. I was the first to see it coming, you see. A divine hand of salvation or damnation I wasted not a moment to decide. I shouted my command to my siblings, ‘Take cover!’ as quickly as I could. But it would seem the True God has a most interesting way of answering one’s prayers.” “It’s a rather curious thing, sir. I was quick to learn a most simple fact: When one hears an explosion of that magnitude, one shall inevitably wake in a place quite new. For me, that place was utter darkness. I couldn’t hear a thing, my stomach felt terribly weak, and new yet familiar scents-ash, fire, blood-were quick to greet me. Fox found me first; he helped pull me from the debris, and we were soon met by Songbird and Lamb. We were weak, trembling, to be sure, but we were alive. Then there was Wolf standing atop the destruction. But his eyes did not meet ours. It was then that we all came to realize our other siblings were…somwhere else entirely. One might think it was silent, but for the sound of Songbird’s whimpers and Lamb’s soothing hums. Children like Songbird at age six, have an honest bluntness to them. So it was unsurprising when she spoke our thoughts aloud. She asked if we survived, then was he still alive? And as they say, if one speaks of the Devil, he shall surely appear.”