Too Catty For Willard
Jon Kuntz
“I’m not even sure what day it is anymore.” Willard said aloud, to no one... In fact, he didn’t know if he awoke an hour ago or a day ago. He felt kind of drugged. Whatever it was, it seemed it was only beginning to wear off. The fact he was in total darkness would have normally panicked him, but he was thinking in a clinical way and not from a tactile sense.
He could tell he was in a confine, a type he couldn’t place. It was soft, almost like skin, and had a faint odor to it. The smell persisted and became vaguely familiar to him. Could it be coal tar, creosote, or maybe a type of plastic? He felt certain it was black in color, because everything around him was totally dark. This was coal mine dark. It was so dark he couldn’t see anything, not even his hands in front of his face.
His hearing was all right. He could identify different kinds of noises. There was an alternating sound that built to a crescendo, then it faded rapidly. More different kinds of sound came to him. Another was like air being moved, a “whoosh.” There was a mechanical element, like machinery being operated, and a whine he couldn’t place. All combined, it sounded a lot like a freeway, close up.
Willard chuckled. He would take cats, strays, neighbors’ pets, but it didn’t matter from where. He even adopted some cats from the shelter. He’d put them in a black garbage bag, tie it off, and toss it onto the freeway. He thought it was great fun and never tired of it. Sometimes the bags would last up to an hour, but the end was always the same.
Now he remembered. There was a little old lady who came up to him in the supermarket. She started talking to him about the cats. How could she have known? Willard never told anyone. She started telling him about a Cat Higher Power that watches out for all cats, telling them where to find a home, helping them on a journey, whatever their need. She told him the Cat Higher Power was extremely angry at him for what he was doing to its creatures.
Willard couldn’t believe what he was hearing. She had to be making this up, except she knew what he was doing with cats. She knew days, times, details..., things no one else but he could know. He couldn’t believe her in the supermarket, how could he? It clicked. Complete and total panic came over Willard. Suddenly he realized, she must have been following him. She lived in his apartment complex, and had a lot of cats in her unit. He probably scoffed a couple of her cats from the neighborhood occasionally, but unknowingly. She had to get help for this stunt, but that didn’t help Willard now.
He was in a black plastic garbage bag! He was on the freeway! He would be given a second chance, wouldn’t he? There was a way out of here, WASN’T THERE? He heard the sound of an eighteen wheeler coming toward him. Was the “eighteen” to be his answer?
He thrust his arms and legs back and forth, in and out, and the bag began to tear in several places. He really started to panic. In no time, the bag was shredded, and he could see the big truck bearing down on him. He spotted the shoulder of the road, which was adjacent to him, rolled across it, then thrust his body up and over the guard-rail, landing on a mound of fire ants.
Willard didn’t notice a thing. He just lay there, on the ant mound, collecting his thoughts, about cats. He was determined, that no more would he torture or kill cats. He would leave them strictly alone.
Shortly his thoughts changed from cats to ants, fire ants in particular.
