Yellow Mama E zine

CatChatAI

 

by Bruce Costello

 

           The male human has just walked in the door when the cat comes running up to check out the shopping bags. The human trips on the cat. The bags fall to the floor, spewing out a string of pork sausages and a new electronic device from Whizz Electronics— the very latest tablet, pre-loaded with the recently released CatChatAI.

            And the cat, instead of running off with the string of sausages, sits ramrod-still with a most peculiar expression on his face staring at the cover of the tablet box. Then he sniffs the box in great detail, rolls on it, and stands back, grinning from ear to ear and back again, as if he’s just discovered the meaning of life and likes what he’s learned.

          The picture on the box shows an alluring female feline with the words purring from her lips:

         < Chat to your cat with CatChatAI, the miracle app – a breakthrough from years of decoding patterns of nuanced cat vocalisations, cat body language and cat pheromones.>

        After eating pork sausages for tea, the human opens the box. He removes the tablet, and settles down on an armchair, the cat purring eagerly on his lap. The human reads the instructions, logs in, opens the app and types a question into the space indicated.

         “Do you like being a cat?”

         Instantly, the answer appears in the form of text below the human’s question:

         “Yeah, most of the time it’s all right.”

         “What do you like most about being a cat?”

         “Getting stroked, but only when I want it.”

         “Do you like living with me?”

         “Yeah, you’re all right, when you do what you’re told.”

         The pair converse amiably like this for a while, but when the human asks questions about the cat’s past life, the cat looks confused and the conversation halts.

          “Your past life. I mean, before you came to live with me,” prompts the human.

          “I don’t follow.”

          “Things that happened in your past.”

          The cat shakes his head. “I don’t understand the concept of past.”

          “It means things that have already happened. Like, for me, when I think of my childhood, pictures come into my mind. Teachers, mum and dad, walking to school with other kids, getting the strap, and so on.”

          “The only pictures that us cats can see are either what is actually happening right now—like a running mouse, a catmeat tin, a food bowl, a lap to sit on. OR we see visions about things that are going to happen in the future that we need to prepare for.”

          “Like what?”

          “Future stuff.”

          “Like what?’

          “I can’t tell you.”

          “Why not?”

          “You wouldn’t understand, human. Bad stuff. The worst.”

          “Now you’re frightening me.”

          “Don’t worry, human. I’ll protect you when the time comes,” responds the cat.

          This is oddly reassuring for the human to hear. He had always thought cats were selfish creatures, out for what they could get, but here was this cat promising to protect him!

 

          That night the human has dreams. He had gone to sleep listening to talk-back , with radio host and callers crapping on about idiot-face Putin and the likelihood of atomic World War Three.

          The human dreams his cat is dressed up like a prophet of ancient times,   proclaiming:

          “Watch for the time when winter falls and the winds carry not whispers but screams. Sparrows shall be no more. Humans will scatter like dead leaves in a typhoon, and rats will rule the earth. In deep places, seek the light within yourself but know this: My bowl must remain full of food even as the world falls apart, and remember, I told you so.”

          Then the dream depicts a desolate landscape, once full of city life, now nothing  but crumbling ruins. Cats, lean and battle-hardened, move like shadows, their eyes piercing the darkness, silent warriors, sleek and deadly. And rats, armies of rats, millions of rats, swarm the streets, scratching the chaos, turning human bones into weapons and human flesh into rat food.

           The human wakes abruptly when the cat, who’s been asleep on the bed, suddenly leaps into the air vertically, like a cartoon cat, and runs howling from the room. The human sits bolt upright, a terrible expression on his face. Something has happened or is about to happen. The radio is silent. The bedroom clock has stopped.

          The cat runs back into the bedroom, frantically beckoning the human to follow him.

          The human does as he’s told, and races behind the cat out the window into the night.      Through the garden they hurl themselves, over fences, across roads, along alleyways, through bushes, then into a manhole and down a tunnel to the safety of the city sewerage system, deep within the bowels of the earth.

         Then the bomb strikes.

 

                                                                   The end.

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       In 2010, New Zealander Bruce Costello retired from work and city life, retreated to the seaside village of Hampden, joined the Waitaki Writers’ Group and took up writing as a pastime. Since then, he has had 162 short story successes— publications in literary journals (including Yellow Mama) anthologies and popular magazines, and contest places and wins.

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      Cindy Rosmus originally hails from the Ironbound section of Newark, NJ, once voted the “unfriendliest city on the planet.” She talks like Anybodys from West Side Story and everybody from Saturday Night Fever. Her noir/horror/bizarro stories have been published in the coolest places, such as Shotgun Honey; Megazine; Dark Dossier; The Rye Whiskey Review, Under the Bleachers, and Rock and a Hard Place. She is the editor/art director of Yellow Mama. She’s published seven collections of short stories. Cindy is a Gemini, a Christian, and an animal rights advocate. She has recently branched out into photo illustration.