Catland - a humorous fantasy

Chapter Six: Greg Robs a Grave

It was one of those moments when you have to make a decision, and you know that whatever decision you make, it will determine the whole course of your life from that moment forward, and you'd really rather not make a decision, and in fact you'd rather be in bed sleeping, or at least resting, or at the very least sipping cocoa and reading an Agatha Christie novel, but you know those aren't serious options, so you try to concentrate very hard on the decision you have to make, but you find it difficult to concentrate, because it's 4:24 in the morning and you haven't had nearly enough sleep, and you're talking to a cat, and you're also the size of a cat, and you're really not feeling up to any of this, but the cat is still staring at you, and clearly expecting an answer, and although you're so tired and bewildered that you feel like screaming, you force yourself to face up to the choice in front of you, because, doggone it, that is just what grown-ups do.

It was one of those moments. And Greg knew it, too.

Greg looked around him, at the too-big room—now absurdly big—that served as his office. He looked at the pile of neglected papers sitting beside his computer, some of which were probably bills from last April, which he was pretty sure he had paid, but not sure enough to throw them away. He looked at the computer itself—the device that ate up approximately 112% of his waking hours—the device on which he worked, played, socialized, and—primarily—did absolutely nothing for hours on end. He looked at his chair, which was a very uncomfortable chair that he despised, and which he had lugged around from one house to another for—he suddenly realized—the last six or seven years. It was the chair that made up his mind, finally. Greg absolutely hated that chair.

Greg looked at the cat, who was watching him expectantly, but patiently, his tail twitching gently behind him.

"What do you need me to do?" said Greg.

Leopold gave a toothy smile. "I need you to help me to dig up a corpse," he said.

Greg immediately regretted his decision.

* * *

So it was that Greg found himself, in the waning hours of the night, standing on the edge of a tiny graveyard full of tiny gravestones, looking down at them dubiously, as well he might. Leopold was darting in and out among the graves, his black fur showing quick and vivid against the cold moonish white of the stones, then vanishing again, then flashing by in another place, as if he were playing a cold, dark, morbid form of peekaboo. Greg watched him vaguely, vaguely wondering whether he should just turn around and trudge on home. What kept him standing where he was was mostly inertia. He was, in a sense, too tired not to dig up the corpse of a cat.

"Over here," Leopold hissed.

Greg sighed, hefted his shovel, and dully followed the sound of the cat's voice.

Greg hadn't known he possessed a shovel, but it turned out he did have one, propped up cheerfully in a corner of the garden shed, as if it expected that any day now, Greg would snatch it up and put in a nice, jolly day of gardening, which was a thing Greg had never done and never would do. It was a good shovel, sturdily made in the days when things were made sturdy. Greg felt slightly guilty for putting it to use in such a skulking and underhand fashion. He half-expected the shovel to protest.

Leopold was seated on his four paws beside one of the newer graves, twitching his tail expectantly. It was disconcerting the way Leopold could change, in an instant, from human to feline body language, and then back again as if nothing had happened. Every time he did it, Greg felt his grip on reality loosen just a little bit more.

Leopold indicated the grave with a quick jerk of his head. "This is the one," he said. "This is where they buried my grandfather—the High King of Catland, the Lord of the Ancient Races, the Heir to the Lionblood, and Prince of All Lands Above and Below."