VOLUME: UP ISSUE #24
Maybe he was living the high life too high. He'd been enjoying
himself alright, and why not?
But maybe a little too much...
Wednesday morning vagabond Pete, (all black
except for a patch of grey between his hind legs) woke up in the gutter
in front of the Tailspin Tavern. This had happened before, and though
no real harm had ever been done he was never too proud of it. A chunk
of missing memory is like a clump of missing hair from a routine street
fight: the wind carries it away as if it were never there and on
you go with your life, but you're screwed when someone pulls a fast one
on you. "Remember when ...?" No, you don't, but how can you be sure
it DIDN'T happen?
But this particular morning was a little EXTRA disturbing. Pete
didn't feel good at all. His back left leg was all out of whack and
hurt like hell, and most of his tail was missing. If he couldn't
find it and put it back on somehow, he'd be sporting a stump from now on.
"What, oh what, could have happened to my tail?" said Pete the Cat. "Oh dear, oh dear, am I in a nightmare? What the Hell?"
He got himself the morning edition of this
very paper, sat on it and began to read, hoping a story or a clue would
lead him in the right direction. There was only one curious item,
towards the very back of the paper, which had any hint of promise.
Amongst amusing but slightly disturbing ads featuring pictures of near
naked humans in ridiculous poses was an advertisement for (among other
things) a "Cat O' Nine Tails" at a location in the red light district,
not too many blocks away. So he set off limping towards the address
because maybe a feline so fortunate as to have nine tails might be willing
to give one up.
With his slowed gait he didn't arrive until
nearly sundown. It was a curious shop, but he suppressed his curiosity,
skipped the shopping and approached the voluptuous human woman at the counter.
"Excuse me please Miss, I wonder is the Cat O' Nine
Tails here just now?"
The woman laughed and turned towards a doorway to
a back room behind her.
"Henry!" she said, "better come out here,
we've got some cat looking for the Cat O' Nine Tails!" Her manner
of speaking was not without a dark edge, but it was nothing compared to
the roar of the menacing, hooded and leather clad giant who came out from
the room behind bearing a multi-tassled and very nasty looking whip!
"What have we here?!!" he roared. "So, you
want a little of this action do you, you varmint?!!" he screamed
while cracking the whip on the floor just inches in front of Pete, who
was so stunned he forgot his injured leg as he turned to flee! He
twisted and fell, and judging by the wind up his backside if he'd still
had a tail it would have caught the second crack of the whip! Perhaps
by sheer force of adrenaline alone he managed to projectile himself out
the door and in fact all the way straight out of town on his three remaining
good legs before he slowed back to a pained hobble and dared to look behind
to see that he was not pursued.
As the sun went down Pete found himself in Marshy Meadow near Wowbegon Lake and limped into a field of cattail plants where he collapsed into a curl. As his racing heart gradually slowed back to it's normal pace, he watched longingly as all those tails waved mockingly yet hypnotically in the breeze at twilight. After a long while, he fell asleep and had pleasant dreams of dancing featherless pheasants.
If any one has seen any trace of Pete's tail or has any knowledge regarding it's disappearance please contact the Wowtown News!
-Thomas Truax
Copyright 2004 by Thomas Truax, all rights reserved.