Genie
Genie
By
Gary J. Davies
Published by Gary J. Davies at Smashwords
Genie
Copyright 2017 Gary J. Davies
Smashwords Edition License Notes
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This e-book is a work of fiction created by the author and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are a production of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously. Thank you for downloading this e-book!
Contents
Forward
Genie
About Other Publications by This Author
Forward
There are enormous advantages to short stories. For the reader they of course take less time to read than novels. For the author in some ways they are harder to create, but generally they are much less work to write and edit than novels. The exception is of course book covers, which are required for publications of any size, but at least covers are fun to make.
This is my twenty-third published short story. Like many of my stories it is contemporary and largely fantasy but with a veneer of science. This particular story was inspired by my amazing pet cats. Enjoy!
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Genie
"Bang, bang, bang," came the annoying noise from somewhere in the house, not nearly as loud as for example gun shots, but plenty loud enough to wake Harold Tizard from pleasantly sound sleep. When he opened his eyes he noted that dull light was coming in through the bedroom window, so it was evidently morning already. Here in the outer suburbs, there were no street-lights or other nearby sources of artificial light, and there was no moonlight for the night either. But it felt too damn early! He was still tired, much more tired than when he went to bed! The banging went on for maybe half a minute, then stopped, but resumed a short time later.
"Damn!" he exclaimed angrily as he finally with difficulty sat half-way up in bed and propped himself on his elbows. "Got to be those damn cats!" He said it loud and angry enough to cause Flip and Cody to raise their heads from where they had been resting them over his right leg and stare at him with deep inquiring cat eyes. Otherwise the heavyset orange cat Brothers didn't move from their favorite positions where they lay to share his company and body warmth, but Harold knew that they were now on the alert and ready to spring away if necessary.
It was seldom necessary, at least nowadays. He had many months ago gotten over throwing slippers at them and such. When his dear sister Emily passed on a year ago and her five cats came to live with him there had been several human fits of anger against the cats in response to their antics for a few weeks, but those had proven to be useless. Worse than useless, as the cats had responded with even more bizarre behavior: defecating out-of-the-box, fighting with each other, and more passionately tearing up rugs and furniture. Yelling at them only made things worse he quickly learned; they were too dumb to understand what he wanted and much too selfish to care.
Amend that, he considered. 'Dumb' and 'selfish' were human terms, it wasn't quite accurate or fair to attribute them to cats. But he didn't have better words, as his human words were designed to apply to humans, not to the hairy little aliens that now lived with him.
Since the orange twin Brothers were still with him on the bed, one of the other cats had to be responsible for waking him up with the banging. At last he wasn't waking up by hitting the floor. Harry, the biggest cat, and to a lesser extent the lovely cat Pricilla, both had a habit of sleeping beside him and gradually pushing him off the bed in the middle of the night. So yes, things could be worse, and too often they were.
Pricilla and Antsy noiselessly stepped into the bedroom from the hallway to look up at him inquiringly before leaping up onto his bed effortlessly using supple coil-spring legs and spines. Unlike the stocky Brothers, these cats were lean and long. One after the other the two Girls landed so gently that Harold hardly felt the bed jolt at all. Antsy, the nervous black cat with white stomach and paws, promptly sat demurely at the foot of the bed, content to timidly watch events unfold from a safe distance, and taking care not to draw the attention of the surly Brothers on the other side of Harold's legs.
Meanwhile bold black and tan striped Pricilla walked directly towards Harold's face along his left side, while she locked eyes with her human host. Several times her big front claws caught on the bedspread for a moment, and she paused to shake the paw free, tearing a few more bedspread threads in the process. It again reminded Harold that all the cats needed to have their claws trimmed. Again. With the cats there was always something.
She stepped onto his belly, sinking claws through red flannel pajamas to push against tender human skin, and butted her lowered head gently against his face, purring loudly. He gently pushed her off of himself and guided her to lay next to his side, while he petted and scratched her. It had taken the cats months to fully train him, but now Harold knew exactly how to pet and scratch each of them in order to maximize purring.
"Good cat," said Harold, amended immediately by: "Well, better than most, I suppose." In truth he had no idea if his cats were better or worse than any other cats; these were the first cats he had ever owned. Over his lifetime he had owned several dogs, but no cats. Despite steady progress he felt that he was still on a too-steep learning curve with the damn cats. Unfairly, it was mostly him doing the learning and adjusting. Behavior modification, it was called. The cats had gradually modified his behavior to the point that they found him to be tolerable. It seemed like they owned him, rather than the other way around.
He remembered reading somewhere that the most recent common ancestor of humans and cats lived 85 million years ago. Since then each line evolved, making a total of 170 million years of evolutional separation between humans and cats. It wasn't odd that he and the cats were having some problems living together, the real miracle was that they were able to get along together at all. Some mysterious sort of convergence or parallelism of behavioral development obviously happened that defied his understanding, but there were still problems. He didn't understand cats and even worse, there was no way that the little-brained dummies would ever understand him.
Dogs he could get along with easier, though they were also separated from humans by 170 million years of evolution. Humans had tribes and families, dogs had packs and families. Once a dog joined your pack/family with you as pack leader, you had it made! They didn't reason well either, but if you were their pack leader they generally obeyed you. Of course if they decided they were the pack leader you could be in trouble, if the dog was big and persistent enough.
Though they also seemed to appreciate some company, compared to dogs cats remained far more aligned to themselves as individuals: demanding individuals that were eating Harold out of house and home. The cat food. The litter. The vet. The cat toys. The air fresheners and stain removing odor killers. The costly scratching posts and mats that the critters mostly ignored in order to destroy rugs and furniture. And don’t forget the hairballs!
So much of his fixed retirement income now went towards cats that he could barely get by. Worst of all there was the time and effort required of him to take care of them. Of course he didn't need money and time anyway for things like vacations, since he couldn't leave the cats alone for long. Besides, he didn't need vacations; his son and daughter and their families came to visit him often enough, and combining cats and kids was a prescription for limitless amusement.
&nb
sp; For most of his life he thought that dogs were smarter than cats, now he wasn't so sure. As with humans and dogs, there were smart cats and dumb ones, and each cat had a uniquely distinct but alien psychological makeup. But none of them could be reasoned with; even the smartest individuals lacked the requisite intelligence for reasoning. If only they were smarter! He was sure that if they could be reasoned with they would be much easier to get along with.
The steady banging noise that so rudely woke him from much needed sleep continued relentlessly: bang, bang, bang! It had to be Harry, of course; the four other cats were now on his bed, innocent as hell for the moment and acting that way. This was one of those rare occasions when blame could be unerringly assigned to a particular cat!
He looked at the clock on his nightstand. Only five thirty five, and it was already becoming light outside! Days were certainly long in early summer, and the blasted cats woke with the sun! The little bastards would 'cat nap' for most of the day, while he ran about endlessly doing cat chores for them. Today he planned to vacuum the whole house to reduce the stray cat hair and cat litter that seemed to get on everything, Retirement was supposed to be like an unending vacation. It was for his cats, but not for him, their cat caretaker.
"Lord of Lights, it's the middle of the damn night, you idiots!" he complained uselessly, as he absent mindedly scratched Pricilla some more. Cats were so frustratingly stupid! But they were affectionate when it suited them, and right now it suited Pricilla. He started scratching behind her ears, worked down her back and ended at her tail. She purred even louder in response; she did the most persistent purring of the lot, and licked Harold's hand with her sand-paper tongue. "I'm retired guys, you have to let me sleep in longer! I'm sixty-six years old for Christ sake! That's human years, dummies! That makes me ancient, in cat years! If you guys want me to live long enough to keep you in kibble and clean litter, you have to let me get a good night's sleep!"
He often explained things to them, even though he knew that they didn't understand a word of whatever the hell he was saying. But they did seem to understand the tone he was using, if it was sincere. In this case although his words were a bit harsh he had softened his voice to further calm them.
But five thirty-five AM? He'd perhaps try to nap later in the day while the cats did. But that never worked. There always seemed to be one of them on the alert to bug him. It galled him that all the cats slept much more than he did, especially the Brothers. The Brothers usually got up only to eat or poop. The Girls were more active, they loved to play and snoop about. Harry was the most active, the most intelligent, the most affectionate, the most stubborn, and the most trouble by far. For the millionth time Harrold regretted promising his sister that he'd take care of her damn cats. Five thirty-five? Usually they didn't wake him until after seven! Eight if he was lucky. He put dried food out for them so they wouldn't wake him to be fed, but they wanted canned food.
He sat up straighter, displacing Pricilla from his side, and pulled his legs up to his chest, triggering a further rearrangement of cats. The Brothers stood, which caused shy Antsy to retreat to the very edge of the bed, ready to bolt. Pricilla continued purring as she rearranged herself to push her back against Harold's left hip. Like Harry, she liked to push against him relentlessly as he slept.
"Got to check on Harry," Harold explained, as he swung his legs off the bed, slipped on his slippers, and stood unsteadily. "Not that I don't appreciate the company that the rest of you guys give me." He turned and bent over the bed to scratch and pet each of the Girls and Brothers. They were all up and about and happily purring now, tails up and contented as they pushed each other out of the way and vied for his attention. They knew what was coming very soon: breakfast!
First he dodged into the bathroom to take care of himself. For a few blessed moments he sat quietly alone in his fortress of solitude. Then the cats in the hallway started pushing against the closed door and doorknob so that they rattled and banged. More distant, the other banging continued, a counter-banging to the bathroom door noise. Harold couldn't even take a crap in peace.
From where he sat he noticed that there were several cat toys including ping-pong balls scattered around the bathroom floor, but most were hung-up behind the bathroom weight scale, toilet, and waste-can. Ping-pong balls and practice golf-balls were the best cat toys he had yet discovered, even better than the lengths of clothesline that they liked to chase. The clothesline required his active participation, while the cats batted the balls all over the house without the inconvenience of human effort. All Harold had to do was periodically retrieve them from where they collected underneath and behind things.
He reached down and retrieved a half-dozen white ping-pong and orange practice golf-balls from where they were hung-up and tossed them into the center of the room where the cats could get at them again. He tossed two balls into the bathtub, and for good measure added a little cloth mouse from the floor. Pricilla especially enjoyed playing in the bathtub, as long as it was dry. She particularly liked the orange practice golf balls with the convenient holes in them that allowed them to be snagged by grasping cat claws.
He washed his hands but turned the faucets completely off when he was done. Flip especially liked to hop into the sink to sip and bat at water dripping from the spigot, but there was no time for that now. Harold wanted to solve the mystery of the banging.
Herding cats was easy, all you needed was cat food, or at least the promise of it. The Brothers and Girls soon accompanied Harrold to the kitchen where the cat food was, rubbing against each other and against Harold's legs, almost tripping him. They were purring and yacking like crazy, and sometimes swiping clawed paws at each other and snarling to establish position; he'd have to feed them immediately for sure or all hell would break loose.
In the kitchen it had already broken loose. The kitchen table and floor were covered in hundreds of shredded paper-towel bits, strewn among the dozens of cat toys that were supposed to keep the cats occupied and uninterested in wreaking havoc. On the middle of the kitchen table was a torn and battered cardboard tube, empty but for one tiny torn strip of paper towel somehow still clinging to it. The cats with him ignored the mess and continued jockeying for position, but for Harrold it was a jaw-dropping, foot stopping sight.
Nearby Harry sat on the kitchen floor, still patiently trying to open the bottom cupboard door where the cat food was kept. Bang, bang, bang! Time after time he reached out with his right front paw to snag the edge of the wooden door with his big sharp claws and pull out on it. Each time it opened maybe half an inch before the springy 'child-proofing' mechanism he had installed months ago pulled it shut again with a 'bang'. He would have to get out a screwdriver and again make some adjustments. All the cupboards were cat-proofed, or Harry and the other cats would be inside of them half the time. Cats liked being in such places almost as much as Harold liked being alone in his bathroom.
The banging finally stopped and Harry turned to focus on Harold, the Brothers, and the Girls. Lean and long like Pricilla but much larger, Harry strutted confidently towards Harold, tail straight up, head and ears high, eyes huge, unblinking and focused on the human co-master of the house. He was striped black/brown/tan similar to Pricilla: he must have had some sort of jungle wild cat bred into him, a shrewd wildness that apparently could not be bred out. Pricilla and each of the Brothers cautiously dodged away from him, while Antsy withdrew back to the doorway, ready to bolt back to the bedroom depending on Harry's mood.
As usual, Harry's mood was good. The big cat walked right up to Harrold and brushed against his legs, circling him confidently to spread his scent to the human. This human was his. The others quickly moved in to brush themselves against both Harry and their human host. They were one big happy family, as long as Harold did his part and immediately fed them.
Harold picked up the empty cardboard tube, then reached down to scratch Harry behind the ears. "Well, I obviously shouldn't have left a roll of paper towels out on the kitchen table
last night. My bad!" He held the tube in front of Harry but the cat totally ignored it, as expected. Pricilla took a swipe at it, ripping the last scrap of towel off of it.
Which cat or cats had destroyed the rest of the roll? There was no way to know. All the cats generally ignored the empty roll and the shreds of paper scattered everywhere around the room. Whoever did the deed was through with the mess. And even if Harold did know which cat did it, there was nothing useful to do about it. The paper towel caper was over and done with and likely forgotten by the cat or cats that had done it. Right now there was only one thing on their minds: food. All the cats were agitated by now and strutting about and meowing to get their human's attention.
Harrold released the child resistant latch to open the cupboard and pull out five small cans of grain-free cat food. At sixty cents a can, that was three dollars' worth, and he usually did this three times a day. Six times for Cody. Cody had some sort of digestive problem that required that he be fed no more than half a can at a time. Feed him any more over a two hour period and he puked it all up. Three times a day Cody had to be shut into a room by himself to be fed his small extra meals.
From the three plastic feeding trays on the floor Harold retrieved five empty bowls from the previous feeding and put them into the sink for washing. Atop the cupboard on a tray he assembled five of his clean cat feeding bowls. He had fifteen feeding bowls in total, each always in some stage of use or washing. For each cat except Harry and Cody Harrold scooped a can of food into a bowl. Cody got half a can and big Harry got a can and a half.
As he slowly and carefully carried the tray of food across the kitchen the cats meowed, yowled, and swatted at each other as they swarmed around his legs. They pushed against him, apparently trying to trip him. With difficulty he stepped around and over the cats and dozens of cat toys, including the empty cardboard boxes the cats liked to hide in. But he made it to the feeding trays, quickly distributed the bowls of food onto them, and made sure that Harry and Cody got to the right bowls.