cats

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Heisenberg’s Cats

Posted by Ebonstorm on February 4, 2013
Posted in: 5 Minute Fiction, Fiction, Short Story. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . 8 Comments

Beautiful-Cat

The uncertainty principle says that we cannot measure the position (x) and the momentum (p) of a particle with absolute precision. The more accurately we know one of these values, the less accurately we know the other. 

–Werner Heisenberg, 1925

Though he certainly did not know it at the time, the famed Heisenberg had never considered anything bigger than an electron to be subject to his famous principle. He certainly did not know it could be applied to the common house cat.

While you, as the owners of cats, or as the subjects of being owned by cats, might think when your feline lies sleeping, it is in the house with you. Nothing could be further from the truth.

You see, you are not touching that cat. If you did, you would know it is only there as long as you are touching it. And maybe as long as you are thinking about it. But as soon as you turn away and leave the room, the cat no longer exists…with you.

It has, like the wave-like particle described by the good doctor, disappeared only to reappear in another house where it is also sleeping because someone is thinking that they too have a cat which shares the exact same appearance as yours.

Have you noticed your cat, even if it is an indoor cat on a diet, never actually seems to lose weight. You buy diet cat food. You regulate his diet giving him never more than a mouthful at every feeding. You weigh him, you exercise him. Yet his weight never changes. Your plump cat remains as plump as the day he got that way.

Why, you ask?

Because whenever you leave to go to work, your cat is also leaving your home riding a wave of quantum reality to the home of another family who never starves him. Yes, your cat is an indoor cat. He does not go outside. He is simply, someplace else. Because you don’t know where he is. So he can be there. And then he is.

They love him. They feed him. They believe he is their cat. And in that particular moment, he is. And this is the nature of cats. They exist as a waveform, capable of being in any number of other places at almost the same time.

You have seen this, only you didn’t know what you were seeing. And because you weren’t measuring it, you weren’t able to interfere with it.

Remember a day when you wanted to do something with your cat but he could not be bothered? So his solution to his problem with you is to run under the bed, or into a closet and hide. You watched him go in. You are right behind him. You reach into the closet or under the bed but you cannot find him.

You assume there is a secret crevice or crack; a nook you just missed. But you are wrong. He is simply not there. In that instance, he is now with another family who recognizes his aloof nature and has a cat tree for which he can sit quietly, sphinx-like contemplating the universe and being completely worshiped. He may sit in that tree for hours while for you, he has only entered the closet moments ago.

In the time it takes for you to go into the kitchen, fumble around in a drawer, find that little used flashlight, change the batteries which are corroding said flashlight, replace them and return to your bed or closet, you cat has napped, contemplated his multiple existences in space time, had a bite to eat in the future and returned to the past to appear exactly where you thought you left him, more relaxed, fed and ready to bolt from under the bed and around the corner.

Alas, as soon as he turns the corner, he will be appearing running around the corner of another house in Wales somewhere, chasing mice and laughing inwardly at how much fun he has existing outside of the boundaries of time and space, only showing up long enough for citizens to believe they have a cat. You run around the corner to try and catch up with your elusive pet only to turn and find he has vanished again on silent paws.

You turn away frustrated and figure eventually he will return. And you are, of course, rewarded for your patience, for as soon as you open a magazine or newspaper, or as soon as you begin to type a missive to a friend you have not thought of in a while, he will reappear from under a table you didn’t see him go under, or from behind a door you know was closed the entire day. You are relieved. You nuzzle your cat and all is forgiven. And this is the nature of cats.

People are so sure they have a cat. They will even report to the census bureau, why yes, we have a cat. Fifty million homes will report owning a cat, in a country with a reliable census of only twenty million cats.

Cats understand. People don’t. It never occurs to people to realize perhaps what they have is the idea of a cat, nothing more. No one can really own a cat.

He’s only yours as long as you are looking at him… Ask Schrödinger.

Heisenburg’s Cats © Thaddeus Howze 2013. All Rights Reserved [@ebonstorm]

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The Aspect War (6)

Posted by Ebonstorm on November 21, 2012
Posted in: Chapter, Short Story, The Aspect War. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

Sabra’s Cats

Sabra smiled.

She brought her cat in from the outside.

She was an older woman who had lived in the tenement in the Bronx for as many years as she could remember. She had a number of cats inside the house already. But no one could say it was too many cats, because if you did not see them, you might not know they were there. Each was a shadow or a whisper seen just out of the corner of your eye and would sometimes disappear when you turned to see them. Each was a picture of perfection when they deigned to come over to you, fur shining, teeth glittering in the candlelight. Sometimes you could pick one up and marvel at its lithe and muscular nature, the ever gentle scent of mint that rose from their fur.

Sabra was different than other old cat ladies in a number of ways. She did not appear to be as crazy as most. Yes, she wore the typical old lady clothes, stuff from a century earlier than this one. You never quite recognized any of it, but you knew it wasn’t fashionable any time recently. It did not stop it from being somehow appropriate for her and she wore it with a type comfort unseen with today’s plastic, polyester, over the top clothing which may be perfect for the time but no one would remember it a year or two from now and no one would ever admit to ever having worn it.

No, her clothing was timelessly beautiful, just like she was. Her face appeared to be that of an old woman with warm lines whenever she smiled a you, laughing lines around her eyes and while her cheeks had narrowed, they were once full and soft, and had a curve that enticed you to approach her neck and just sit there, near her perfect ears and long, dark hair, now white, but still long and strangely luxurious. And while she appeared to be a woman in her late sixties or early seventies, her stride was only occasionally one of a woman whose body was in it golden years. Most of the time, you might see the shadow of another, younger, more vibrant woman and wonder what she might have been like in her youth.

Sabra was certainly a mystery to everyone who saw her, because you could only seem to see her as a collective. If you focused on any single thing, the way we just did, you might notice more than you were supposed to and that might be bad for you. Sabra’s neighbors had learned to ignore the peculiar old woman who might talk to herself as she trundled up the stairs with cans of cat food and vegetables. She would let the young men in the rough neighborhood carry her bags upstairs but none were ever rough or rude to her. There was something about her that let you know she would not tolerate poor manners. Very few people could remember a time when she did not live here, but no one could tell you when she moved into the neighborhood.

It was a strange thing among a number of strange things that did not make sense, but everyone accepted. Bad men, drug dealers, killers, and pedophiles would wander into this part of the Bronx, because it was a nexus of social activity, and peddle their wares, but this was not done often after Sabra became a member of the neighborhood. These men would disappear after they met her a few times returning from her errands.

The neighbors noticed this but said nothing. These men were not of the family, or of the people or of our people. They were other and Sabra warned them. She always did. If they did not take the warning and leave, the locals would shake their heads, mutter under their breaths about the diminished quality of the neighborhood and wait for the Song.

At first, people wondered where Sabra collected her cats because there were never any strays on the streets in this part of the city. At night, you would see a few of them, but you always knew they were her cats, clean, quiet, well mannered like her. People tolerated them and in return, there were no mice in shops or apartments, and no rats would dare to grace a trashcan for blocks in any direction of Sabra’s apartment. Stores she frequented also enjoyed that blessing. After a few years, her cats, became invisible to the locals, a part of the landscape, welcomed and yet ignored.

There was never a time this collection of cats was ever a menace to the neighborhood, nor did they stay up late at night singing and disturbing the neighbors. They might be out, and they might be singing, but their song was a different one. One that soothed, one that protected, one that said, don’t notice us, there is nothing to see here. If you are hearing us, you are happy, you are one of us, you love our song, and if you are not, you don’t want to be here. People who didn’t belong here who heard that song and were on the wrong side of it, were never found again.

Sabra would pick up her new cat in the morning, instinct brought it to her, confused, it would run toward the beacon it could see in the night. Clamber in through the broken window in the basement, climb the three flights of stairs in the old building, and wait at her door. She never recognized these new cats, but could feel its confusion about its new, simpler, life.

She would bring it in, give it food, get it adjusted to its new home and its new brethren and she would go out to make sure her neighborhood was the way she left it when she went to bed. The warm sun would always bring a smile to her face and make her think of a place far away, lost both in time and space. Then that memory would fade and she would tuck her scarf into her jacket and mutter incoherently.

From the fire escape, one black cat would watch for her, prowling rooftops keeping her in his sight and safe for another day. He had done that job for decades and took it very seriously. She cannot remember who she is. Not yet. The time is not right.

The Aspect War © Thaddeus Howze, 2012, All Rights Reserved.

Where the Sun Touches the Earth

Posted by Ebonstorm on May 12, 2012
Posted in: Short Story. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

A Tale of Cats versus Evil

A haughty woman festooned in heavy brass jewelry, the tacky kind, loud, banging and discordant, stands looking at a rhyming dragon who is gazing into a viewing pool with her.

The dragon is an unextraordinary member of his species. His scales are dull, coated in coal dust, his musculature, once mighty has the look of an athlete past his prime; a bit pudgy in the middle and soft overall. His wings, while still mighty from lifting his massive bulk, droop whenever he is on the ground too long and the flesh between the skeletal frame, flap loosely, like poorly hung drapes.

His countenance is one of supreme unhappiness, his fanged head hanging low, nearly dipping in the viewing pool. It would not take much imagination to see him drowning himself. Their hellish surrounds sizzle with fiery tendrils that rise up from the molten earth, a part of the Stygian underworld, rife with the screams of the damned, their cries an unending concerto adding to the misery flowing through the air; surely an unpleasant place, at best.

The woman’s mouth is tight and she speaks through clenched teeth, her displeasure evident as she points her finger directly into the dragon’s smoking visage. He winces and responds. “‘Where the sun touches the Earth.’ That was such a vague clue.” He whimpers. “How was I supposed to know the answer to the riddle was in the Arctic Circle and it meant the aurora borealis?”

Her answer sizzles like a hand on a griddle; a hand held there against its will. “You are supposed to be a Rhyming Dragon, one of the riddle-masters of Stygia. Supposedly one of the finest minds of daemon-kind. Answers are supposed to be your stock in trade.”

“We don’t get National Geographic in Hell. No auroras either. Until last month, we didn’t even get the Internet. Until I checked Wikipedia, I didn’t even know what an aurora was.” He turns his head away looking at an imaginary bit of lint on his tail.

“No matter, the Conjunction of Worlds is already taking place. Can you take me to where the Goddess will arrive?”

“Yes, I can, but we may already be too late.”

“Hope for your sake, we’re not.” She climbs onto the neck of the dragon and he wheels away into the Stygian sky. The Woman in Brass, gestures and a portal begins to form in the distance. The demon climbs before diving through the portal into the Harrowing, the voidway between worlds.

Semii jumps up onto the desk of the Man and surveys his work. With his tail waving back and forth, his posture spoke eloquently of impatience, hinting anxiety, his tail stiff with the very tip flickering back and forth.

The digital representation of the goddess Bas-Tet on the widescreen monitor is sublime perfection. Semii presses his cheek against the screen, basking in the bliss that is Bas-Tet. Meanwhile his brothers are outside standing watch, just in case the Evil is able to detect what they were doing before they were ready. Fat Boy positively glows with power and Big Red looks as menacing as Semii has ever seen him. The two of them are outside watching the Ways hoping to see anyone approaching. But the most dangerous task of freeing the goddess would still fall to him.

“Man, will this work? We don’t have much time.” The Man was a genius with computers, but revealing to him the secrets of magic may have been too much. The battle against the forces of Evil was supposed to remain part of the Secret Lives of Cats.

“You know I have a name?” The Man looks at the Cat he believed was HIS pet only to discover their roles were actually reversed and it was he who is being guarded and protected from an unknown threat, his cat does not deem him important enough to know about.

“Yes, you have a name and we are forbidden to use it. Names have power. We never use yours to prevent Evil from gaining control over you. Have you finished the task at hand?”

“Semii, this digital representation is an exact reproduction of the piece of wall at the museum. I have used over fifty high resolution images. If your magic is as good as you say, this image will be perfect.”

Walking across the keyboard as he had done so many times in the past, Semii stood and nuzzled the man under the chin. “You know I can’t let you remember any of this. She would never forgive me if she knew you were aware of our Secret.”

“If you erase my memory, how will I know if this works?”

“If you look up at sunrise and the chariot of the Sun God Ra does not appear, you will know something is wrong.”

“No pressure, huh?”

“No. Not a bit. You may pet me now. Mmmm. You will forget this when I am gone. Life will return to what it was before. My brothers will keep you safe while I am gone.”

“So you guys are doing things like this all the time? Saving the world and preventing Evil?”

“Yes. Of course. We have done this for your entire existence. Without Cats, Humanity would not even exist. You would have starved to death overcome by Rats, Ignorance or some other dreaded catastrophe. You may thank me with an extra treat from the special stash on the top of the refrigerator when I return.”

“Have I ever helped you before?”

“No. But if this works, I may call upon you again. But it will remain our secret.”

“Good luck, Cat.”

Semii jumps up into the lap of his Man and waves his tail creating the sigil of Horus in the air. “Thank you, Man.” With a bounding leap, he jumps directly toward the monitor and passes through the glass with only the tiniest of ripples. The Man smiles, shakes his head and falls asleep.

The cat lands on the tundra grass and flexes his toes into the tough permafrost. Nasty place. Glad I don’t live here.  He looks up and sees the moon already deeply in eclipse. With his legs flashing in the fading moonlight he runs forward into the night. The aurora forms in the distance, first tiny wisps, growing stronger with each passing minute.

“Hurry, my champion, the time draws near, I need you to anchor my passage.”

“I am coming, my Goddess. As fast as my frozen body will allow. Was there no other point you could have come through? Someplace with a tropical climate? You do remember we are descended from desert dwellers.”

“Yes, my child, I do. Please forgive my imposition. If we escape, I promise we will go somewhere warm. Beware, two Stygians approach.”

“I sense them, but they will not stop me from arriving in time.” The night lit up as an explosion of fiery venom shook the ground near the running cat.

The dragon swooped out of the night sky, his passenger clinging tight to his neck. “You missed.”

“Mistress, I am a Rhymer, not a fighter. My venom glands don’t get much use.”

“Then perhaps you would make a better floor covering than Rhyming dragon.” A second and more accurate burst of venom flies from the dragon’s mouth. Only a split-second bound saves Semii from disintegration. The shockwave from the exploding venom sends him flying into the frozen grass, inert and still.

“Land there.” The dragon lands and his body glows with heat. His feet sink into the permafrost as he melts the ground around him. His passenger, wearing the skin of a human woman, rises from his prostrated neck and lightly floats just above the icy ground. As she walks across the ice, the aurora grows brighter and the sky sizzles with electrical energy.

She find Semii lying on the ground with smoke rising from his tiny body. “I found you, you little bastard. Your trick was good, but it wasn’t enough. I will stop your goddess and her kin from returning. This is the ascendancy of daemons, no gods need apply.”

She picked up his tiny body and looked into his one open eye as she began to squeeze his neck, choking him. She rejoices inwardly as his lifeforce slowly fades away. He spasms one last time and then hangs still in her hand. Curiosity overwhelms her and she brings his tiny body close to her face, amazed that something so tiny could be so much trouble.

Semii suddenly struck out, slashing the arm, face and the eye of the woman, flipping about and landing on his feet to streak away into the tundra grass. The woman screams and clutches her face with one hand. With the other she sends forth bolts of power that landed wildly onto the tundra.

“You don’t know much about Cats do you?” The dragon’s voice was quiet. “You know they have nine lives, right? Do they even brief you guys before they send you into the world anymore?”

“That’s a myth.”

“So are we. That’s gonna leave a nasty scar. Wounds from Cats never heal.”

A furious scream rises up from the tundra as the moon darkened completely and the aurora lit up the sky, swirling and crackling and off in the distance touches the Earth, just for a moment. Leaping into the arms of his goddess, a cat rejoices.

Where the Sun Touches the Earth (Cats versus Evil) © Thaddeus Howze 2012, All Rights Reserved

The beautiful artwork of Bastet and Cat remains the copyright of the talented Italian artist Rita Micozzi (ritam on DeviantArt) used without permission.