Tomcat Story
Matthew Ryan Fischer
Rex did his job. He didn’t always agree with it, but he did it. He
was good at it and he knew he was good at it. That made it a little bit easier
to do. Still, for the most part, it was often a really boring and demeaning
job, just like a lot of other jobs out there. It involved a lot of sitting or
standing and a whole lot of waiting. Then, there was usually only one instantaneous
moment of excitement, that never lasted long, and it was over. Usually it ended
in blood. That wasn’t really part of Rex’s job, but it was often the end result
of the series of events.
Rex hid a lot. He hid in containers. He hid in dumpsters. He hid in
closets. He hid in alleyways. That was what he did mostly. Hid. Hid and waited.
Waited for someone to show up.
Rex wasn’t mean or malicious. He didn’t relish his role, but he
knew it was an important role to play. He took pride in a job well done.
Sometimes when he thought about it, it seemed like somewhat of a
stupid role to play. He was a cliché. He was a running joke. But even a running
joke had to do their job and do it well.
Rex hid in the corner, around the hallway’s bend, draped in the
shadows, hidden from the naked eye. He waited for his opportune moment. Someone
would come. They always did. They wouldn’t be expecting him. Sometimes they
were nervous. Sometimes they were even on the lookout. But somehow, they never
expected him.
It seemed to him that the people were always a bit foolish. They
were looking for trouble. They weren’t always asking for it, but they were
usually asking for something. They wanted trouble and they were going to get
it.
Rex didn’t like what happened to the people, but that wasn’t his
fault. Or at least that’s what he told himself. Rex wasn’t trouble. He was the
moment before trouble arrived. He was the diversion, the break in the
anticipation, the unexpected that got someone to jump, let down their guard,
and then not be ready when the real trouble began. Rex didn’t kill people, but
he got a lot of people killed.
Rex had been in so many stories. So many stories with so many
monsters and so many killers. He had been the lead distraction to them all. The
poor innocent victims were always so dumb and went in search of their own
death. And they were always so easy to startle and distract. Rex would hiss or
growl or jump out into their path and they would shriek out of fright. And then
they would die.
Some cats were good luck. Some were bad. Horror film cats were the
worst, most dangerous type of cats. They didn’t mean to make people die, but
that was their job.
Rex was aware that he was sort of a bad joke, but it was his job.
He kind of hated it, but he kind of loved it. Rex did dream sometimes of being
something more. He didn’t want to only be the distraction, the moment of false
surprise. He had big dreams. He thought maybe someday he could be the monster,
the killer. There could be monster cat people. There were black magic cats.
Maybe he could learn that and make his own role as the spirit of evil, or
damnation. He didn’t know what he could do, or would be allowed to do, but he
wanted to try.
Someday. Someday soon he would try. He would become something
more. But for now he had a job to do and new victims to scare.
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