THE CAT'S PRIVATE EYE

PART ONE OF MICRO-FICTION ABOUT JOHNNY ZERO, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR AND A FLOATING HEAD IN A SPIRIT CABINET.

 "Johnny zero," The cat said, licking his black paws, and sneering. "We have you cornered. there is no  way out."

It was true. They had my back up against a brick wall down a lonely alley. There must've been about fifty of those fuckers and all of them were at the whim of their master, Mr Lim. He was an old foe of mine back in the days at college when he could change into human form any time the wind blew.
Those were different times: The poets studied rules of verse and the ladies rolled their eyes--
wait a minute; that's Lou Reed talking. Sometimes his spirit invades my mind. It's hard to control, like turrets. Any ways, I hadn't become a floating head in a spirit cabinet yet. We had a lot of classes together. We became friends. He confessed to me in secret he was man that could change into a cat, and a couple of homosexual encounters.  All he had to do was swallow a pill each month and his human form was easy to retain. By accident one drunken night, I spoon fed a monkey that was passed out in my dorm room(the drunken monkey is a long story).
Years later, after my own freak spiritual accident with Houdini's spirit cabinet, I met Mr. Lim at a Celtics game. Talk about  uncomfortable.

And here we are.
 "What do you want, Mr. Lim?"  His friends came closer to me. The wheels on my cabinet were stuck in a groove in the pavement. They kept turning and turning.

"I know you are a private eye," He said, cleaning his ears with his paws now. "I need you to find someone. her name is Colletta Bare. Pinky! Show the floating head her picture." he ordered a tabby to approach me.
The cat took both paws and slid them into his mouth, pulled his jaws open. His head split like a ripe melon. A piece of paper fell out to the pavement. In the picture was a blonde with fat red cheeks and large blue eyes.

"I want you to find her and bring her to my castle. i believe you know the address. I've taken the liberty of paying your debts and buying you a subscription to Highlights children magazine," the black cat hissed.

Damn. I forgot i confessed to him my love for Richard Scary stories.

"And if I refuse your offer?" I asked, smiling.

"My friends will use their claws to scoop out your eyeballs and pour catnip in your empty eye sockets."

                               END OF PART ONE

Reviews

[Brantwijn]

This is very interesting! I love the surreality of it and it hooks me very well. I definitely want to know more. Your conceptualizing, your phrases, they all have a tinge of humor and a sense of the macabre to them as well. I very much like the tone. My only suggestion is that the line about drunkenly spoon-feeding a monkey seems incomplete and I wonder if there is a missing word there? I'm assuming the narrator is saying he spoon-fed the pills to the monkey but without that delineation its difficult to understand why the image is there. Also the line about homosexual encounters, I was unclear if that meant that Mr. Lin had confessed the encounters to the narrator or if they themselves had had homosexual encounters.

[Raven Starhawk]

So many times I have written about how spellbinding your writing is and each time I hope I do not sound as though I am a broken record. The fact is your writing is marvelous.

[jennifer little]

wonderful storie great job keep up the good work