The Haunted Traveler December 2017 Edition

75
Catastrophy
Donna J.W. Munro
“No Tiger,” Dee said to her just declawed kitten. He tried climbing all the things just
two days before he’d scaled like a pro. “No more kitty fingers.”
“You are an asshole,” big cat Fluffers told her, having lost his own claws last year
when he’d moved in.
“Look Fluffers, you needed a home, I gave it. I buy the food, clean the litter, give the
pets. I just don’t want the scars and scratches.
Shadow, the other kitty boy, leapt again at the edge of the couch, already pierced
one hundred times by his gone little nails. He refused the lesson as if he could make it
untrue by trying again and again.
“Scars and scratches hone the soul,” Fluffers said, twitching his tail and watching his
young protege leap and tumble down onto bloody, little paws. “After this brutality, I
don’t even think you have one.”
“A soul? Why would I give you a home in if I didn’t care? All I am is love for you
three.”
Big cat Fluffers and his two clawless kitty boys sneered at her and stalked away to lick
their wounds.
That night, Fluffers and the boys sat on Dee’s chest as she lay sleeping in bed. She
woke with a start and struggled against their little furry bodies, but there was no moving
them. Usually her little five pound kittens and their twelve-pound pack leader felt like
nothing in her arms, but not now. Now they were pillars and she was chained between
them. They were the vault of the sky pinning her shoulders to the bed. Static crackled