DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE: By Henry Gribbin
Friday, November 25th, 2011I am cat. Specifically, I am a vampire cat. Those like me who came before me have their origins in South America. Our kind go back over three thousand years. Then man came, and we were slowly forced steadily northward, until we came to your parts. We are a noble breed, hunting only at night. We catch our prey and drain their blood. We leave the carcass for the carrion birds and other wildlife. We sleep during the day, but besides hunting at night we cause as much damage as we can. We especially like to scratch parked cars and urinate near air intake vents. We do not like humans. You might wonder how I am writing this story. Our kind has always understood the written word and we understand speech. We can not talk, but we have mastered the internet and we know how to send emails when some unsuspecting human leaves their computer unattended. Now on with my story.
I was flushed out of my hiding place in the early afternoon. Two men in uniforms carrying big nets then caught me and threw me in the back of a truck. The wording on the truck said ANIMAL CONTROL. The two men looked at me through the cage in wonder. I looked back. They started talking, and I listened. They had no idea I understood their speech. A tall skinny human asked the other human, a short fat man, what they were going to do with me. The short fat one seemed to be the boss. He told the other man that they were going to take me back to the pound. Then the short fat one was going to call a phone number and tell whoever answered that they got another one. The short fat one said that soon after someone from the DoD would come and take me. “ What Is the DoD?” the skinny one asked. “ The Department of Defense,” answered the short fat one.
I listened, and I was scared. I had heard of this Department of Defense. I did not care for what I heard about them. The tall skinny human did not seem to care for them either. He wanted to release me. “What would the DoD want with this cat?” he asked the short fat one. “You can’t train it to do anything, any fool can see that. You can’t even train a regular cat. How many cats did you ever see jump into a freezing lake and fetch a stick?” The short fat one just shrugged. “I know what you’re saying. I bet if some big, nasty dinosaur suddenly appeared the DoD would want to capture it and slip dog tags around its neck. But let’s go back and I’ll make the call.”
This is the end of the story. The DoD did come for me, and the rest of the story is classified.
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©2011 Henry Gribbin
