The Experimental Cat

I saw that black cat pass by my window again. The same black cat that was run-over by that car the other day, and the same cat which fell from the third story balcony, miraculously appearing along the sidewalk, unscathed, a week before that! The locals joke of the nine lives a cat carries, but never before have I witnessed such prestidigitation on a scale as insignificant as this.

I take a pen to the flimsy pages of my journal almost every other full moon in hopes of catching each instance of this feline’s seemingly final demises. I find no pattern in his deaths, and can draw no conclusion as to why the beast has survived more than twenty-four accidents which should have left it permanently dead. In some cases it was crushed, burned, and I’m sure even starved at one point, if such an incredible specimen can go without the need for food.

I’ve never heard it speak, but it carries a voice far deeper than the sound of thunder, and I can tell it is powerful. It is a voice heard only in the mind. Like a sort of telepathy.

The eyes have seen conflict too great to imagine. Oh, I am sure of that! It has the eyes of an old soul. One who has seen the horrors of history, but sits in silence to never look upon it’s own reflection.

It’s fur, silk and black, can remain dry, even after having been caught in the most drenching of downpours. This cat is almost untouched by life itself, whilst never harboring the shadow of death. It is caught in-between the two somehow, in a place outside of understanding.

I doubt sometimes… if it even knows of it’s own abilities. If such power did lay within the belly of an animal, why not such power lay within the palm of a man? What could tie a mere cat to the unexplained glitches of the universe, and if studied, could we comprehend it?…

Could I comprehend it!? Living alone for some time, I had always found comfort in the assurance that any discovery that I couldn’t prove to a sceptic party, I could take peace in the belief of knowing myself. I have kept this knowledge about the cat’s existence a secret, and I have no intension of telling anyone, for now.

For as long as it suits me, I alone know of it’s greatness. There was a time I had planned, and succeeded, in experimenting on the beast. I caught it in an alley and lured it with fish. Typical.

I was stunned to witness that it wasn’t devoid of animalistic instincts or needs, like curiosity and hunger. For a while I kept it in my apartment and ran my tests without discretion. I found maintaining it’s presence in a cage to be the biggest chore, as it would disappear and reappear at random; Often walking through walls and laying, or strolling, across vertical or upside down surfaces. 

Once I invited the feline into my home it wouldn’t leave, and soon enough, neither could I. It was startling at first to open my front door or to stare out a window at a world and see total darkness; a blackness that stretched on for infinite miles, but shrunk to a flat solid picture when it was reached out for. Distant.

As long as it was with me, there, inside my home, myself and the beast were cut off from all known time and space. Brought to a final boundary of the universe. A place I couldn’t escape without the cat.

I could only ever leave my apartment when the cat was by my side. Having him around made my mind venture off and contemplate wicked thoughts of more brutal experimentation, especially after learning of his distrust for me. A distrust which kept him around to feast, but startled him enough to trap me off from the world when my thoughts grew black as pitch.

I used to stun it with darts. Even attempted to poison it one or two times. When it was passed out I’d break it’s paws and crush it’s bones ever so gently.

When it finally started to come round again it would leap up at me and scratch my face. It would then jump up and begin to walk away, on all fours, on the very paws I’d broken only seconds ago! It was astonishing.

A few times I took a knife to it in it’s sleep, to test the little monster’s ability to heal. In one instance, I dipped it in a pot of acid. Each time the beast came back and treated me with a new scar, and an even more detestable glare.

I couldn’t be mad. I was aware my tests were cruel, but how else was I to know of this beast’s limitations!? It was amazing to witness.

I had to continue my tests! I could feel the cat growing more annoyed at my antics with every slice, dip, bludgeoning, club and battering I threw it’s way, but it wouldn’t leave. I fed it, and it did not know that it’s hunger was merely an illusion.

The beast could not die from starvation, and yet it clung to me to fulfill this one psychological need. As long as this fact remained a secret I knew it would never leave me. No matter what I put it through.

Still, the urge to tests the feline’s limits and powers wouldn’t cease for a long while. It’s torture continued to the full enjoyment of my curiosity, and after awhile, hurting this ‘god’ started becoming fun. When I would ponder these thoughts I honestly believed it could comprehend what I was thinking. 

He would follow along with angry looks and hissings that reared from a cat and rung like a cobra. He gave off the presence of so many other animals and displayed that he could even morph himself to appear as them, but for seconds at a time. The beast would spawn in different parts of my apartment, making it quite hard to proceed with testing.

I tended to notice that, when laying on it’s back, spilt liquids in the apartment dripped upwards, then downwards again when the cat turned right-side over. Alone in my apartment with that entity was indeed a mind expanding experience. I could almost feel the nothingness in the space outside my apartment.

I was in a pocket, cut off from time, with a lazy, presumptuous animal to serve as my only key to the world beyond this place; where dimensions lie scattered and twisted. Then, the day came that I decided that I would finally execute my last test. This act, which I would soon take great regret in, knocked at my chest and danced on my mind for some time now.

I kept my thoughts a blank as I walked over to the beast, sitting gingerly at the foot of my bed. I picked it up and pet it’s head as I had done time and time again. With the beast in my hands I made my way over to a desk where I reached for my letter opener, out of the beast’s view.

I could no longer contain my excitement! The cat’s face jolted a surprised look at me as his eyes shot wide, keen to my sudden thought! I was quicker then it, and I drove the letter opener into the beast’s neck and hacked across with a vicious thrust, ripping and tearing its vocal chords and slicing it’s head clean off!!

It screamed out, like a person and with the sound of a hundred other animals, the deeper I cut, the more gargled the scream became! I was covered in blood. My hands shot up into the air as the beast’s body fell from my arms, hitting the ground with a vicious thud.

My breaths were heavy and I blinked with frantic quickness. By my third blink the cat no longer laid bleeding out in front of me, upon my carpet. Instead, it was perched upon the end of my bed, just as it had been seconds before.

It glared with a hard discomfort before leaping from my bed and onto the floor. I couldn’t tell if I had really just done what I thought I had done; or if I had just imagined the last few seconds of experimental madness. As I looked down at my arms the letter opener and my scarlet soaked limbs made it clear, that what I had just done really happened.

Once again, within moments of death, the cat miraculously spawned unscathed, only a few feet from me. Assured, I could do it no harm if I tried… at least, no permanent harm. As my key to the world outside strolled across the floor, I couldn’t blame the beast for what it had done next. 

Across the blood drenched carpet it trailed, growing transparent with every step it took. It walked through the door with ease and disgust traveling on it’s fading shadow. The cat had had enough, and suddenly it’s presence was gone. 

The omnipotent cat had rendered me silent to the world, trapping me inside my apartment with no key to return to the outside of these these inescapable dimensions. It was a place outside time and space where I lingered, imprisoned. I tried stepping out the door, escaping through the window, even smashing through the foundation of the rooms to reach the apartments above and below, but there was nothing there.

Nothing but condensed space and oblivion for eternity. I met a true product of unbelievable scientific existence. It is clear I won’t be returning to reality anytime soon.

I also fail to believe the cat will cross my plane again. Least, not after what I’d done to it. I still wonder though, what would it have been like if, instead of a beast containing such a gift, the possibilities of a man harboring godlike abilities?

That is the phenomenon I believe mankind will one day see. A godship of sorts. The difference everyone needs to see to understand our irrelevant roll in this vastly incomprehensible existence.

It’s the difference that sets gods apart from men, and men apart from beasts; and that is the difference in power.