WHAT KILLED THE CATS
by Connor Nathans
The story behind the complete collapse of a prosperous and powerful community
One day, a fox found himself in a field that was foreign to him. The territory, he knew, was that which a great group of cats had long held, but he felt forced to make the trespass; for he was a young animal, and his fellow foxes were making life difficult for him back in his old home. He brought with him no illusions that cats would be any kinder than foxes had been, and his hope, then, was to carve out some sort of sustaining life for himself in the newness, a thing which scared him, of course, by its very nature.
Were it not for his so empty stomach, the fox would never have dared the invasion. After all, the cats of this field enjoyed a long reputation for being a rather sizable as well as feisty bunch, and their territory had been unquestionably theirs for as long as any predator of small size could remember. The fox knew all this, but, still, he was forced to make his move.
The first thing the fox saw, upon first definitively arriving in zone forbidden, was a number of field mice lying about in a patch of dirt, apparently sunning themselves while engaged in idle conversation. The fox, along with his empty stomach, needed to see no more, and without a word, or even sound, he pounced upon the group, took up one of the mice in his jaws, then sprang away with his kill.
In no time at all, the meal was in the fox’s stomach, and nearly as quickly, he began to regret the speed of his eating. His surroundings, after all, were still a dangerous mystery, and it occurred to him that he might have interrogated the mouse a little, if only to learn the most basic facts of his surroundings. Well, he told himself, the animal would have likely said nothing, anyway.
Just as the fox was coming to this accord with himself, a sight happened to catch his eye. A glint of white, the thing was obviously, to the fox’s trained eye, a glimpse of bone. There was, of course, nothing for the animal to do but investigate.
Interested though he was, the fox remained wary, and his approach was made on tiptoe, each step including a cautionary look about. Eventually, one such step froze the animal in his tracks, leaving him never after the same.
“Most thunderous God!” the fox exclaimed, though not allowing his voice to rise above his breath. “What is this?”
By now, the fox could see that it was a full skeleton that he had come upon. Indeed, so complete was the carcass that the fox could be sure that it had once belonged to a cat who had died on his back. Moreover, the fox’s knowledge of such matters told him that the cat’s death had not been a violent one, and there showed, in fact, not the slightest sign that there had been any sort of a struggle. Both alarmed and nervous, the fox became confused; for what could account for the death of this cat, this feline of pride powerful and protected, who had died without danger but, rather, with apparent comfort and ease?
The answer to this question came quicker than the fox would have ever expected. In short, he looked up, saw a second skeleton, positioned and intact as the first, and then, not far from this second, he saw a third. Horror, of course, in its totality, gripped the fox at this moment, and it became all the greater when he truly looked about; for he now realized that he stood at the edge of a clearing, in which at least twenty cat skeletons could be seen spaced about, each lying on its back.
Naturally, the fox did neither any more looking nor thinking, and his legs, as quickly as they could, turned then ran him back the way he had come. It is certain that he never once turned back his head, so he did not, therefore, see any more skeletons, though they seemed to remain just before his eyes. Before long, he found himself nearing the patch of dirt where he had made his entry into this accursed land, and he allowed himself to feel the first sense of escape.
Amazingly, in the middle of the dirt, there was gathered the same group of field mice as before, though missing, of course, the one who had been made into meal. The little animals were, once again, sunning themselves and engaging in idle conversation, and even the fox, despite the current state of his mind, was able to be amazed by their audacity. More from reflex than anything else, the fox, as he sprang through and scattered the group, scooped up one of their number in his jaws.
“Tell me,” the fox said, releasing the mouse from mouth in order to give the small animal a number of thorough shakes about the shoulders, “what is this hell? What is this above-ground graveyard, and what is the name of the monster who has made it? What is the animal, I must know, that has so destroyed the so powerful while so sparing the so puny? Tell me, mouse, who has done this most topsy-turvy thing? I must know: What ever could have happened to all those cats?”
“Sir,” the mouse replied, “I will tell you, and I hope that my honesty will be to my credit. You wish to know the animal responsible for this field’s state of affairs? Well, no animal but the cat, who did himself in. My fellow mice will all tell you the same. One day, all the cats of this field found themselves so contented that they rolled onto their backs, bellies in the sun, then never rolled back over. They envenerated, I tell you, all, each simply wasting away with wide grin. I swear to you that I was able to walk up and down every pathway of this field, and I could walk right up to any cat while they still lived, never fearing in the slightest for my life, so much so that, as you have found, I have forgotten how to be wary. Their upside-down eyes would see me, of course, but I could see, in turn, that there was nothing in them, that they had lost both the will to move as well as any enjoyment from movement. Ask my fellow mice, and they will confirm what you have heard from me: It was incuriosity that killed the cats.”
Mr. Nathans hails from a number of places in the Midwest. He now lives and works in Miami, Florida.