Self-Infliction
By Mystitat
(Part one of two)
Wanna hear a secret?
Promise not to tell?
Hmph. Like I'd tell you. Maybe you'll find out. In due time.
"Sweety? Darling, wake up!"
I open my eyes to the glare of sunlight in the small den I share with my mate. She's shaking my shoulders gently, trying to wake me up. She has no idea I've been awake for hours, and that I actually only came in and lied down next to her a few minutes ago. I won't tell her, though. She likes to think she gets up long before I do. I won't ruin it for her.
I won't tell her I'm usually gone half the night, doing things she has no idea about.
"Wake up!" she calls playfully, giggling. Looking back, I wonder whyever I chose her for a mate. She's so different than the queens I'm used to. Well, that is, the queens I used to be used to.
I roll over and look up at her, look into her eyes. She smiles that cocky little smile, the one that says, "I know something you don't know." If only she really knew. "Get up now, dearest!" she says again, playfully.
I snarl just as playfully, reach up, and put my arms around her neck, pulling her down to me, snarling happily. "Just five more minutes," I mumble as I run my paws through her pure white fur.
"Ack! Stop it!" she yells through giggles. "You're messing up my fur!"
"That's the point," I say as I let go of her, letting her sit up over me. Still lying down, I say, "If I mess up your fur, you have to groom it again, and then," -I lean forward and give her a little lick on the nose - "I get to help you."
She smiles so sweetly. "Not now," she mumbles, but I'm already up, doing her the favor of grooming her fur. "You can't!" But I can tell she's really enjoying it. "You – oh!" she cries as I groom lower and lower down her back. "Okay! Really, stop!" she says through giggles. She twists around and grabs my cheeks playfully in her weak little paws. "You really have somewhere you need to be!" she says, in the manner that a human would speak to a cute little kitten.
"I do?" I mumble through squished lips.
"Yes you do!" she says in that talking-to-a-kitten fashion again. "Munkustrap's called a meeting of all the tribe's guardians. You have to be there."
"I do?"
"Yes, you do."
"Now?"
"Yes, now."
"Come with me?"
Here, she pouts, and lies back down on the pile of blankets in the den. "I have to get some more beauty sleep," she says vainly through a yawn.
Fair enough. Munkustrap probably wouldn't have allowed her in the meeting anyway.
"Fine," I say. "But I'll be back."
As I emerge into the hot summer sun baking the junkyard, I note that there isn't anyone around. That's not unusual. It's still early in the morning. Most cats like to be asleep at this time of day. No one wants to be about when it's this hot. I idly stroll toward the central clearing, contemplating my position. It's ironic, really, that I'm one of the tribe's guardians (guardians being more of a patrol of strong toms than anything else). It really is. They really trust me. It's just too funny. If only they knew, I wouldn't be in the junkyard anymore, let alone be one of its guardians.
Though if they knew my secret, there would be many things different about my stay in the junkyard, the least of which being that I wouldn't be a guardian. I'd probably be tied up to something. Tied with chains, no less. Only the best for me.
I'm not sure why I have this secret in the first place. It wasn't like I didn't have better choices. There were many other options I could have used to accomplish my purpose at the time. But coming to the junkyard seemed best, for some reason or another. It baffles me to this day. I try to think why I'd want to spend time in an ill-managed, flea-infested, dirty rubbish dump with two many places for an enemy to prepare an ambush.
But then I wonder, "Why not?"
I certainly have found what I needed to know and left. I could have done it in perfect anonymity; I didn't need to introduce myself to the tribe. Come to think of it, I'm surprised that I introduced myself at all back then. It would have been far wiser to the tom that I was to keep myself a secret. Then again, maybe I had wanted to show off the new persona I had created just for this purpose. It was probably too much fun to resist, to fool those silly Jellicles into thinking I was someone I wasn't.
But, thinking upon it now, it's really silly, the double life I lead. I've long since lost any need for contact in the junkyard, but I've kept it up relentlessly. I have a mate and friends here. It's unbelievable, but here I am, doing it. There's no need to. To the perfect analytical mind of my other self, it's pure foolishness. But when I'm like this, as I am now, here, in the junkyard, I just feel a certain sense of belonging and ingenuousness that I never feel in my other occupation.
I could easily go back to being that, and that alone. But I find myself not wanting to. I could give up my other self and live only here in the junkyard, and not have to worry about my mate waking up in the middle of the night and finding me gone, but I can't do that either. They need me too much. If I left that life, the hirarchy there would fall apart completely. Fights, even wars would ensue, and I can't let that happen. Not now. Not when I might have so much to live for.
I turn the corner of a large trash pile and come upon the central clearing. Most of the other toms that make up the tribe's guardians are already assembled, chatting nonchalantly about ordinary things, waiting for the group to be complete. I join them, sitting next to Alonzo.
"How've you been, Plato?" he asks customarily as I sit.
I shrug. "Same old stuff. Not much changes." I stifle a yawn. Not much changes. Yeah, right. Everything changes, on a second's notice. It's only too hard to stay one step ahead of the Jellicles.
He glares at me with a funny look on his face. "Been staying up late?" he asks.
"Yes." As soon as the word escapes my mouth I realize that I probably shouldn't have said that, but it's all right. I can make it work. He'll never find out what I was really doing last night after Victoria had fallen asleep.
Thinking dirty thoughts, Alonzo goes on: "Have you now? You're a luckier tom than I am. Stay kitten-less, that's all I'm saying. They'll be the death of you." He stifles a yawn of his own. "You can't get a wink of sleep when they're in the den with you, let alone have any fun with your bedmate."
I smile at his sleeplessness. "What? I thought I heard you and Jemima were still swinging!"
He glares at me. "Swinging, maybe. Swinging kittens back and forth. I swear, kits will be the death of me!" He throws up his arms in exasperation. "You're lucky Victoria's humans had that ... thing on her."
I roll my eyes. That's none of his business. Especially since he's wrong. "Yeah, whatever," I mumble. Whether I stay kitten-less or not is none of his business.
"Hey, guys!" Munkustrap yells as he calls the meeting to order from atop the biggest tire in the junkyard. "Guys, I really need you to listen up!"
"That's not the only thing you need!" Admetus calls from somewhere in the back. A couple other toms hoot in agreement.
Munkustrap glares. "Thank you for that kind little tidbit. I shall take it into consideration. Now there's something important I've learned in the past few hours, and it is the reason that I've ordered everyone to remain in their dens."
"He ordered us to remain in-den?" I whisper to Alonzo while Munkustrap keeps talking.
"Yeah, didn't you hear?" he answers.
I shake my head and turn my attention back to Munkustrap: "In light of this new development, we will have to double the watch and increase patrol times, and -"
"Just tell us what happened, Straps m'boy!" Skimble calls.
Munkustrap sighs, and lowers his voice. "The body of a cat was found this morning just outside the south gate. Bloody pawprints were found leading into the junkyard, but the trail stopped somewhere on the way to the main clearing. The cat found was no one known by anyone in the junkyard, but I think precautions are now understandable."
The whole clearing erupts into chatter, but I remain silent. I stay quiet not because I am in shock over the poor dead cat, but because I'm amazed that I was so careless as to leave bloody pawprints in the junkyard.
Oh, did I say that out loud?
