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| Commissioned by Crow T. Robot |
As such, whenever a cat died, Death would often linger, if but for a moment. He wasn’t one for sentiment, all things considered. He rarely knew the people he was sending to the next bit, never knew where they went. He rarely[2] saw them again. He never attended a funeral, save for when someone died. He never held a coffin. He never even planted flowers. There were certainly a small handful of people he would visit the graves of. But never for more than a century, if that. Death healed very quickly.
But cats were just something he couldn’t let go of. Whenever he got near one, his heart would melt and he’d just want to keep it around for a bit. Not that he’d admit this to anyone[3], he was a somewhat proud sort of concept. He had dignity to think of. So when he arrived in the desert, dressed with a pillow sticking out of his red cloak, his beard almost falling off his face, the sack of toys lit aflame by the desert sun[4], he was none too pleased to see a cat dying.
It was a rather large cat, mane bushy as the forest and teeth sharp as daggers. The eyes of the cat were dull, though still capable of sight. They were tired eyes that had seen far too much. Or, perhaps, far too little. The pool beneath the cat was growing as the still air burned the sandy landscape. Death looked at the hourglass in his hand. Death smiled at the name. It was the kind of name a child would devise for something too big for them to fully understand. The cat had only a few moments left before the end.
A cool wind invaded the blistering world of the desert. Death sighed, silently in the cold desert air. He looked at the cat. There was no sadness in his eyes. Little regret. Maybe that it was going to die alone, Death thought. Maybe that there was someone he was never going to see again. Death considered giving the cat a present. A little more time, perhaps. Not too long, even a full recovery would not save the cat. A starving girl in the city could survive for years. A cat with his innards pooling out of his stomach had maybe moments. He looked at the cat, eyes full of pride and sadness. Death tapped on the hourglass, time filling up only for a few moments. Hope can be a good present, Death thought to himself. He would not add any more time[5].
In the distance, Death could see a woman climbing up. She was dressed in a flowery white dress with a star cut out around the belly button. At the center of the star lay a gem, a pink diamond, Death thought. Geology was never his field. She had long, curly pink hair that seemed to go on and on forever. One duff of hair covered her right eye ever so slightly that it gave both of them a permanent shade. She was rather large but walked like a ballerina, each graceful leap landing at the exact spot she meant it to.
“LION!!!!” Shouted the woman. Her cries were full of guilt and self-loathing. She was about a minute away from finding the cat, which was one minute before he would die. Good, thought Death. At least someone will mourn his passing. Few cats get even that. Death thought for a moment that he recognized the woman. That he saw her somewhere, long ago. He couldn’t quite place where though[6].
“LION!!!” The shout had turned into a cry as the woman approached the cat. Her tears flowed from her eyes like waterfalls in spring. She fell to her knees mere feet before the cat. They scratched atop the crusty sand. Her hands clumped in front of them, burrowing tunnels of self-flagellation beneath the desert. Death would not know the lives they had lived together. The adventures they had, the people Lion helped woo, the families they lost to time, to cruelty, to the world. Death would only know the sorrow at the end of their stories.
Many stories end in sorrow. Not everyone gets a happy ending. The woman knew this, but it always hurt to remember the cruel lessons. Everyone she touched would wither and die. Her friends deserved better than she could ever be. She should just sleep here with her cat. Just let the desert consume her like it consumed everything. She’d deserve it. She’d done worse.
“Rrrrr…” mewed the cat. He had crawled its way towards the woman, each pull more painful than the last. His open wound was like a scab and the desert fingers that couldn’t help themselves. The cool breeze shifted the sounds. It was as if he was trying to say something to the woman. Something human ears couldn’t quite understand. She smiled at his words. It is tempting to provide translation for these words, perhaps “A tear, old girl? Don’t cry. While there’s life, there’s…” or “I love…” or even “I hate mon…” But the fact of the matter is the human skill for language is lost on the inhuman tongue.
But whatever the meaning, Rose cried. Death looked at the hour glass, the cat’s time was nearing. He returned the hourglass to his side. Death pulled out a scythe from his pillow. The resemblance of a frown was on his featureless skull. He pulled back his arms, preparing the final swing. Time froze. The world changed. Death’s arms moved towards the cat. And then…
The scythe stopped mid-swing as a pink glow emanated from the cat’s fur. The glow encompassed the feline, diamonds sparkled in the barren desert. His hair turned white with glow and meaning. The woman crawled back in astonishment and wonder. Her sullen face shifted to a hopeful smile. Her eyes lit up with anticipation, with hope, with wonder. She was shaking, more than she ever did when the cat was alive.
When the glow faded, the cat was a different kind. His fur was pink, though paler than the woman’s. His face and body were likewise pink, a darker shade. Even the poof at the end of his tale was pink. The wound where the blood and entrails had been spilling out had vanished as if it was never there. The cat slowly shook himself awake. He pushed himself up onto his four legs. He approached the woman and licked her face.
“LION!!!” She was laughing, life long thought dead had sprung anew onto her body. Death didn’t understand the full significance of this jubilation, and he suspected he may never. He put away the scythe and pulled out the hourglass. Where once the sand was a typical golden tan, now new sand had been added to the mix. Indeed, it had filled the whole hourglass to the brim. What’s more, the sand moved slowly. To the untrained eye, it would appear as if it had not moved at all. That this was a stasis. But Death, who had met many an immortal, knew this would not last. Indeed, he could see the sand shuffle in the glass.
Still, a sense of relief overwhelmed Death as he returned to his sleigh, nine white wolves in the front[7]. Their eyes, all blue with determination, teeth sharpened for the dangers that may come, and noses all prepared to sniff out where the good children where[8]. He sat on the sleigh full toys and merriment, a sleigh built on the revolutionary need for mutual aid, and let out a chuckle that could be felt the world over. It wasn’t as big as that of the sleigh owner, but it filled even the chilly air with some warmth.
The woman hugged her cat as the sleigh departed. She never saw figure nor beast. It was just her and the dying Lion in the desert. They sat there in the desert they met each other in. The wind picked up a warmer temperament as they watched the sun set upon the fields of old. The distant roll of thunder could be heard from miles away. She would return to the temple soon. She often wondered why she never told the others about her secret animal friends. Maybe she wasn’t strong enough, she considered. She dashed that thought away as nonsense, as she rarely did with such thoughts.
Maybe she wanted something for herself? Again, that didn’t feel quite right. There was a sense of selfishness to her, even she was aware of it. But that selfishness lay in areas outside of secrets, she thought. She couldn’t quite place it, but she wasn’t really in the mood to figure out another reason why she hated herself. She was far too busy smiling about Lion. What a wonderful gift she had been given. She would tell her friends about it, the woman decided. This wouldn’t hurt them, and it might even help them in the long run. Maybe she could even heal the contained gems.
As she approached the warp pad, the woman turned back to Lion. A sorrowful, but familiar gaze was on his face. She knew where it was she saw that face before. She would never return to that face for as long as she lived, but she knew it well. She hadn’t thought about that face for a long time, like a toy in a long forgotten toy box waiting for a new kid to play with it. But Lion wasn’t a toy. He was a cat.
[1] Which, to be fair, was often the case.
[2] Rarely is an apt word considering the fate of note revolutionary turned cop, Reg Shoe, who was so devoted to the cause of changing the world, he refused to die even after his pulse went dead. A similar fate befell one Joseph Hill, though some speculate that this Gothically Marxist icon’s afterlife had more to do with metaphor than literalization. Then again, consider “And standing there as big as life/And smiling with his eyes/Says Joe, What they forgot to kill/Went on to Organize” in contrast to “That is not dead which can eternal lie,/And with strange eons even death may die,” both written around the same time.
[3] Or that the cat would necessarily want to stay with him if that meant being kept from doing as they pleased. Death learned that the hard way after a game of chess with a knight errant.
[4] For more on the circumstances behind this, see Klaus and the Doctor of War by Grant Morrison and Dan Mora. Coming soon from Boom Studios.
[5] Many have argued a degree of cruelty in this action. But then, many haven’t been slowly dying of having your innards ripped out by a wrongly placed long dead desert bush.
[6] In total, they had met and conversed a total of two times prior to this meeting. The second time was in a ruin calling itself the Sea Spire. The first was by a palanquin.
[7] Their names were Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and Rudolph.
[8] Save Rudolph’s, whose electronic nose guided them through the fogs of confusion and the pitch dark depression of a black hole.
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