Short Story Sunday: There Would Always Be Cats

Everyone was surprised when the first bombs went off in the Southern Hemisphere. Who would have thought? So much for going to Machu Picchu for Bill’s retirement. Then again, she didn’t really think Bill would ever retire? His fans demanded more and more each year in a time when one would think he’d be too old to be considered sexy anymore.

After that nobody could have even imagined those people from God knows where, from some other universe or galaxy, or even Hell, coming along and causing even more problems.

Apparently they, the purple people, been watching the Earth for a while like a bunch of creepy stalkers. Ellie knew all about stalkers. She’d been a movie star (under another name) for decades. She’d had perverts with cameras trying to climb over her fence and bothering her when she took her kids to the beach, to school, or anywhere else they went. She knew all about stalkers.

Fortunately for humanity the strangely attractive, but violent purple humanoids were allergic, to of all things, cats. Yes, cats did them in. First of all, in all of their travels through the universe they had never seen anything so adorable and appealing. Second, and most important, even their highly super advanced space suits couldn’t keep out whatever it was about cats that finally killed them.

It was like a drug. The purple aliens had to have cats. They craved the soft fur, and the sound of purring. They swooned at the sight of a tiny triangular nose, and the child like mewing. Then they died.

Cat dander. Who would have thought?

All of the aliens died. That was a good thing because the governments of The United States of America, Canada, and Mexico were able to get the technology off of their spaceships. Nobody was quite sure what was done with said technology, but the humans of North America had it ALL.

Then the weather changed, again, and some sort of weird pressure system clamped off the radioactive and other poisons from the south. By then the poisons and aliens had also killed off half of the population of the Northern Hemisphere. North America, Most of Europe, the Pacific Rim, and most of North Africa were spared, but it was carnage in between. The purple aliens came through Asia like the ancient Huns, only sparing the lands along the Himalayas. They also crept into Florida but were killed off by all of the cats in Key West.

Ellie poured a glass of wine and thought about how sad it was that the Argentinian and Australian vineyards had been all but destroyed. It was a good thing that the California vineyards had been untouched.

She looked at the gray green pelt stretched out in her back yard, then at the ocean view beyond her infinity pool. The gray green aliens had come next. They were especially violent but there had been fewer of them. They’d discovered beer and meth. It didn’t take long before all of them died, but not without causing a lot of damage and hate among the California locals. The folks in Silicone Valley had taken the gray green technology. There again, it was too soon to know if anyone was going to do anything with it.

She thought of her husband and how sad he had been lately. He was from Australia. He’d come over thirty years ago to do just one movie and stayed. His ability to do any accent, along with his good looks had kept him working. Even now, after the wars, and alien invasions, and a prosthetic leg (blown off while fighting purple aliens) he was still working. His most recent movie was about lovers separated by the pressure system that separated the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Too bad it couldn’t be filmed on location. Ellie was glad the movie had finished shooting. Bill had been so sad through all of it.

As a formation of jet fighters flew over Ellie thought of their eldest son. He was a pilot. He might even be up there right now looking out for aliens to blast out of the sky.  Her daughter had spent time seeking out the war criminals who’d set the bombs off. Now war had been banned.  Most primitive social structures had been more or less disbanded. Unfortunately after the bombs, and the opening up of holes for aliens to get in, people were just fed up with aggression and assholes. Just fed up.

The only advantage was that now Ellie could have as many cats as she wanted. There were seven of them right now. Edward (gray tabby), Olie (orange tabby), Mitzi (calico), Jen (black), Rick (black and white tuxedo), Pixy (gray and white tabby), Jasper (gray).

Out of the sky came a fireball followed by the formation of jet fighters. The fireball crashed down on the beach, and showed itself to be a golden sphere with a large protrusion that looked like an old fashioned TV antenna. Ellie put her wine down and grabbed her binoculars to get a better look.  A door popped open on the top of the sphere and out of it emerged an orange man in a silver jump suit.  His ears were pointed like an elf.

“Not on my fucking shelf you don’t,” Ellie said to herself.

“Ellie, what in the world are you talking about.”

She turned to see Bill had come out on the deck to join her.

“An orange alien in a gold ball with an old fashioned TV antenna. It looks like an elf.”

The jets flew over and bombed the gold ball and the orange alien to oblivion.

“We’ll go down tomorrow and check out the debris, said Bill. “We might find something interesting.”

“I wonder where it was from,” said Ellie.

“I don’t care at this point dear. We’re nothing but food for them.”

“These ones are orange, like those creatures from Willy Wonka.”

“Oompa Loompas.”

“With elf ears.”

As Bill put his arm around his wife’s waist they both turned to the sound of someone running across the yard.

Soot and blue blood covered orange alien in a half burned silver jumpsuit ran towards them, followed by seven snarling, hissing, screaming cats. As the cats grew closer, the alien stopped and looked around. It opened its mouth to show rows of tiny sharp teeth. Bright blue eyes the size of teacups opened wide. No sound came out.

“Get out of my yard,” Ellie yelled at it, picking a Meyer lemon off of a nearby tree and throwing it as hard as she could, hitting the orange alien on the head. As she grabbed another lemon the cats attacked clawing up the silver jumpsuit covered legs. The alien then dove into the infinity pool.

“Oh for God’s sake,” said Bill. “Not in the pool.”

The cats stood together by the edge of the pool. Along with Ellie and Bill they watched the orange alien fizz like a bath bomb and disintegrated leaving nothing but a bubbling orange scum on the surface of the pool and a charred silver jumpsuit.

“It must have been the chlorine,” said Ellie.

“Maybe,” said Bill. “I’ll call the authorities to come clean up the mess and take a report.”

“Just in case,” said Ellie, “we should call the pool service for an extra cleaning.”

“Good idea,” said Bill.

Later after the authorities had taken a report, and the toxic waste crew and scientists had cleaned up the mess, Ellie opened a bottle of wine.

She and Bill, the love of her life, watched the sun set over the Pacific Ocean.

Their cats gathered around and purred.

“You know Bill, we’re living in weird times. I always thought the 1980’s when we were young were weird, but these times are really weird.”

“Weirder than extreme shoulder pads and Xanadu?”

“Well, maybe not,” Ellie said laughing.

Then they clinked their glasses together, and watched the sunset, not daring to speculate what the future might bring. All they knew was that it was their own crazy romantic story to tell; like a strange underground cult movie that turned out to be their life story. And of course along with their love and their children, they had their cats. That was the one thing they could always be certain of. There would always be cats.

~ end