Catland - a humorous fantasy

Chapter One: Greg Gets a Cat

Greg didn't want a cat.

"I don't want a cat," he said.

His sister Leanne looked at him pityingly. Greg hated that look.

"I don't want a cat," Greg repeated.

"It'll be good for you," said Leanne.

"I'm fine," said Greg.

There followed a pause—a pause so long that in the course of it, Greg's coffee went cold and Leanne became hungry. During the pause, a scientist somewhere was struck by a brilliantly revolutionary idea—and then saw the flaw in it, and lapsed into moody silence. Somewhere, someone read the entirety of Tennyson's "Ulysses," even going back to parse the more difficult sections, while the pause in Greg and Leanne's conversation continued. Twenty-seven babies were born during the pause—in the United States alone.

"You need a cat," said Leanne.

Greg sighed and took a sip of his cold coffee. "You don't even like cats," he objected.

"No, I don't," said Leanne. "I like dogs. But you can't handle a dog right now. Dogs are high-maintenance. They need a lot of looking after. Cats are easy. They mostly look after themselves. We'll start you off with a cat, and we'll see how it goes. If you and the cat both make it to the end of the year, then maybe you can get a dog."

"I'm not getting a cat, Leanne."

Leanne smiled. Greg hated that smile.

"You're getting a cat," she said.

And Greg knew that no matter what he said, or what he wanted, he was getting a cat.

* * *

The cats at the shelter looked at Greg warily. They had been batting at each other playfully, or licking themselves in hard-to-reach places, but when Greg and Leanne came in the door—the bell dinging softly as they entered—the cats all stopped what they were doing and gazed suspiciously at the intruders. Several of the cats still had their hind legs lifted daringly high above their heads, so that they looked like ballerinas interrupted at the barre. I don't know if you've ever interrupted a ballerina at the barre, but they don't care for it at all.

Standing in the doorway, oppressed by the sullen feline glares that came at him from all directions, Greg realized something about himself that he had never known before.

Greg hated cats.

He wasn't, as he had previously assumed, indifferent to them. He hated them. He despised their faces and the way they licked themselves and their impudent, entitled mewling. He hated their craven dependence, and he hated their brazen self-sufficiency, and he hated their dainty little paws and the way their claws spread out when they stretched. He hated everything he knew about cats, and he was fairly certain he would hate the things he didn't yet know. And now, having only just come to this epiphany about himself, he was going to select one of these wretched creatures and take it home with him. He—Greg the Cat-Hater—was going to be a cat owner.

The world was profoundly unjust.

"See anything you like?" said Leanne.

"How about a goldfish?" said Greg, desperately.

"A goldfish is not a companion," said Leanne.

"Neither is a cat," muttered Greg, stepping forward into the shelter with the dragging feet of a condemned man.

The cats, apparently satisfied that they had made Greg feel sufficiently worthless and miserable, returned to what they had been doing. They licked with renewed vigor. They batted each other playfully. Greg watched them and quietly seethed.