The car screeched to a halt.
The driver peered down the hood of the car to see a black cat sitting in the beam of the headlights, giving itself a bath. It sat long enough for the driver to get really annoyed, then walked away.
The cat crawled under a fence, through a yard, across another street, through another yard and over a fence into the woods. It continued another fifty in, where it joined many more black cats.
An old tom sat on a log in front of the group. The right ear was missing. Bald patches from old scars peppered his fur and his tail bent oddly. One of his front teeth was missing, as well as his right eye. "Tomorrow is Halloween. We have a duty to frighten and unnerve every human we can. However, be wary. There are many who would harm you because of your black fur."
A queen joined him on the log. She was missing her left eye, but was otherwise unscathed. "Each kitten is to team up with an older cat, who will show them the ropes."
When the kittens all had their partners, the queen continued, "Spread yourselves throughout the city. We will meet here again at the dawn of the first of
November."
"We will sing the Hallow Cat before we depart," said the old tom.
Hundreds of feline voices rose and rode the wind.
"On this night of a thousand fears,
Humans try to hide their tears.
Little do they realize,
Where the only true fear lies.
For they are left desolate,
On this night of the Hallow Cat."
A human paused to listen to the caterwalling coming from the trees, shuddered, and quickly went inside.
-----
Lady and Folgar sat on a fence, watching. Occasionally, Folgar's tail twitched. Lady, a six month old kitten, moved her head up and down and side to side, trying to spot a human.
"Stop fidgeting," said Folgar. "You're not going to unnerve anyone with all that movement."
"Unnerve who? I don't see anyone."
"Look in the window. There is a human watching us."
"Where? Where?" In her eagerness, Lady lost her balance and fell off the fence.
Folgar ignored her and continued to sit like a statue.
Lady climbed back up, peered in the window and mewed. "I see it! Is it unnerved yet?"
"Sit very still and stare. The only movement should be the occasional twitch of your tail."
The two black cats stared at the human for several hours. When the human, unnerved, refused to look at the cats again, they left.
-----
Jaguar sat on a branch. A human walked underneath. Jaguar landed on his head, meowed, ffftted, scratched and left.
-----
Katrina followed the disguised children to a door. She sat in the middle of the sidewalk as they rang the bell. When the door opened, the light hit her eyes. The children, happy with their gain, turned and screamed at the sight of her glowing eyes.
-----
Domino waited outside a corner shop. The door opened. He rubbed up against a leg. The heavily laden lady, unable to see him through her purchases, screamed and fell. Domino waited until she saw him before running off.
-----
George, a crow in his mouth, and Felix, a rat in his, placed their catches on a doormat. Felix hid behind a hay bale, while George climbed the scarecrow standing by the door. George pressed the doorbell with his paw and jumped down to hide with Felix.
A middle-aged woman opened the door with a bowl of candy. Her smile faded. She looked down and screamed.
George and Felix ran across her path and off the porch.
-----
Betty ran. Five human boys were chasing her. One carried a bag, another a stick. All wore thick gloves. They shouted at each other and her. Betty turned down an alley. They followed.
She crawled under a dumpster. The stick followed. She growled, hissed and batted at it.
The sound of many fierce growls entered the alley. Other cats who had seen her running by had come to her rescue. The boys were covered in a dozen black cats, each. Betty joined the fray. The boys ran. The cats dropped off them and continued their hauntings.
-----
A group of humans walked through the graveyard. A boy boasted of his bravery, while the girls cringed. A boy hid behind a tombstone waiting to scare the group.
Ghost dipped his paws in a puddle with frost forming around it. He hobbled on three legs to the hiding boy and placed his cold wet paw on his exposed ankle. The boy yelled, jumped up and ran out of the cemetery.
The boaster saw him leave and ran after him. The girls followed, screaming.
Ghost sat on the tombstone and purred.
-----
Pre-dawn brought the last black cats to the woods.
The old tom sat again on the log. One at a time, other cats would join him and tell their tales of Halloween Night. They all laughed heartily at the easiness of scaring the humans.
As the sun broke the horizon, the cats left one by one to return to their homes. The song a dwindling hush on the fresh morning breeze...
"...For they are left desolate,
On this night of the Hallow Cat."
Elizabeth Williamson Copyright © 2008
15 comments:
A story about cats, from Beth? You seem to have a one-track mind. :)
Cute story. It really captures the true nature of cats, and explains a few things about their behavior. Nicely done!
Here's my usual battery of questions, corrections, and compliments. Hope it helps.
---------
What’s making the ‘Screeee’ sound? There needs to be some way to connect the sound to an object or person. (Ex. The car screeched to a halt… etc.) Hearing a sound gives me no sense of what's happening in the scene.
It sat there long enough for the driver to get really annoyed (, then) walked away. (Add: comma & ‘then’). Also, that a funny scene. I can see a cat doing that. That's why I prefer dogs. :)
The cat proceeded…? … crept, crawled, slinked… under the fence
Spelling corrections:
• The cat proceded (proceeded) under a fence, though (through) a yard.
• Teh (The) right ear was missing.
WHY do they have a duty to make people miserable on Halloween? Just curious.
Maybe it’s just me, but, “However, be wary. There are many who would abuse you because your fur is black.”, sounds strange. Though I think it’s the word ‘abuse’ that seems out of place. Abuse how? And why? Read it aloud, see what you think.
"Spread out throughout the city.” Out throughout? Repetitive.
“… at the dawn of the first of November." That just sounds cool! Had to mention it.
I don’t ‘get’ your poem. Maybe I just don’t think like a cat, but I don’t know what you mean by “For they are all left desolate,”. How?
And the Hallow Cat idea is unclear too.
Who are Lady and Folgar? Are they the old tom and the queen? You didn’t establish that earlier in the story.
I find it odd that Lady, who is supposed to be a queen, is so fidgety that she falls off a fence. Isn’t she an experienced cat who wouldn’t make a juvenile mistake like that? It’s a funny moment, but not on character.
The moment where they stare at the guy until he won’t look at them anymore. You’ve captured the essence of cats. That’s hysterical.
What’s “ffftted”?
Referring to everyone as ‘the human’ or ‘a human’ gets tedious. It would be more interesting if they were described, such as “…a short bald man”, “…the tall red-headed girl”.
“Betty ran.”?
The graveyard scene is hilarious. I like Ghost’s name— very appropriate.
“the cats slowly left that place to return to their homes.” That place?
“The song a dwindling hush on the fresh morning breeze...”. I like the wording a lot!
because black cats have always unnerved people. superstition. it has also caused people to kill and torture black cats as part of their halloween ritual.
i don't know if you noticed but the middle scenes are a montage of different cats AND i stated that Lady was a 6 mo. kitten (2nd sentence of that scene). it's her 1st halloween and Folgar is her mentor.
haven't you ever heard a cat go ffftt? often called spitting
what about betty running? she is the intended victim of cruelty to black cats
if you can't figure out the song then your loss. ha ha
anyway it's a cat story by popular demand. blame the kids.
errors corrected.... including those you missed
ok fine.
the song is poking fun at human superstitions.
true fear is in reality not imagination.
cats take advantage of that little understood fact.
I understand about superstition, at least the idea of it-- I'm not superstitious myself, but I get it.
So it's their duty to return an eye for an eye?
The idea that people would torture an animal sickens me. Seriously.
I understood that you were doing the montage: Scene... Next Scene... Next Scene...
You didn't establish the names of the leaders of the cats (the queen and the old tom), but jumped into naming the other cats in the montage.
Because you named some, but not all, that threw me off, and I thought that Lady and Folgar were the two cats with the injuries. Sorry.
(P.S.) Name them all. It's less confusing.
Now that you explain that it's cat spit(ting), I get it, but why not just say something like: "facing her tormentors, she hunched her back, and hissed angrily" (or spitting and hissing, if you prefer). Again, making the sound, doesn't describe the action. Don't assume that the audience knows what you're talking about. Assumption bad. : )
And if you're going to describe a sound, accompany it with the action of the object making it-- or attribute it to the object.
The Betty ran query was more about the shortness of the sentence, and not about her predicament. It needs more description without being wordy. There needs to be more, without taking away from the tension. (I'll e-mail my thoughts on this to you.)
Can anyone figure out the song, that's the question. Or is it just your private joke-- the poem has no meaning, and the joke is that everyone is killing themselves trying to figure it out. HA! Jokes on me.
It may be a cat story by popular demand, but you write about cats because you like cats. Don't deny it! :)
I still like your story. There's lots of powerful stuff in it. Nicely done.
Somehow I missed your explanation about the poem. I still don't see it, but okay.
So cats think they're greatly revered and respected (Hallowed) huh? Boy, do they have another thing coming. :)
i didn't name the old tom and the queen on purpose
Not to be argumentative, but to what end? How does it benefit the story to have them nameless?
I was confused (obviously) by having two nameless characters followed by two characters who had names. I assumed they were the same. I'm just not sure what purpose it serves to leave them without names.
do you remember my story with merlin? those two are know throughout the feline world. they have a thousand thousand names. the old tom is high;y revered and to pin one name on him would be cheap and odd. the queen is much the same way. they are almost like royalty.
So, if I understand what you're saying, all men and women of great reputation and power, who have earned our respect ought to be known as "The Old Man" or "The Queen"? But of course, over the generations, with thousands of people in our history books, who have such a reputation, will get lost in the mass of people who are lovingly referred to as "The Old Man" or "The Queen". We won't know who our neighbor is referring to... Moses, Isaiah, Noah, Pres. Lincoln, or the man who pulled 80 people from a burning plane just before it blew up.
Names have power. They establish with the reader who it is we're referring to within the context of our story. If you keep calling Merlin "The Old Tom" (or worse, calling him a different name every time you refer to him) then you need to establish early on that the two names are the same character. Not doing so creates confusion. The reader doesn't know that you're referring to Merlin, or to his 'wife', unless you tell us somewhere (early on) in the body of the text. If you were writing a complete novel, you'd establish that fact early in the story (within the first 1-3 chapters) then the reader would know that ever after, whenever the author refers to the old tom, they are talking about Merlin. No confusion. In a short story like this, you need to cement that fact early on, or, somehow, make it a Chapter Two of your first short story.
Again, I'm not attempting to be argumentative, just to clarify my meaning.
these are cats not humans. their situation is different. your name is ken. everyone you know knows that. your name doesn't change. cats are different. the names of the other cats are the names their humans named them. the old tom and the queen have no humans. they're free felines. so to peg a name on them would be weird because every cat calls them something different. and i would think that BECAUSE they are not named they would stand out more. their lack of a definite name sets them apart from the others.
and no. it's not merlin. i was using him as an example
The problem lies in the fact that your readers aren't mind readers (to read your mind), or have some mystic connection to the cat network. They don't know the rules that cats have about names and their connection to owned cats, and cats with no owner. So they're left out of the loop. Herein lies the problem, you assume that they know the rules without spelling them out in your text.
If people don't know the rules about cats and the naming process, how are they supposed to follow the story? You expect too much from the reader. You're not telling us the history, and so we don't understand the context.
You've explained to me, outside the context of the story how the naming is applied to cats, but without that knowledge within the story, I was confused about who the Tom and the Queen are.
If (for instance) I say in my mind, 'my character is immortal', but don't explain that to the reader, it's going to create problems. If my character crawls out from under a building after it falls on his head, the reader is going to be totally confused. They might assume lots of things, like he's Superman, or is the recipient of a miracle, but if I don't let them in on the secret, it's all speculation, or confusion. Or, worse case scenario, they may assume that I'm a really bad writer, or learn not to trust me, since I'm not giving them the clues they need to figure out the story. Of course you may choose to delay giving the secret away too soon in a novel, but in a short story like this, you have to let the reader know what's going on, or you've let the reader down.
My confusion about 'Merlin' being the 'old tom' is a perfect example: I assumed he was Merlin, and he isn't. Because you didn't explain the rules about the naming, I was forced to assume who the character was.
Alright you too,
Here are my observations...
Ken -
Old Tom and Queen are the King and Queen (as well as the most experienced).
Folgar and Lady and the team of
older cat and six mth.old little cat. Lady fell off of the fence in her excitement to scare the humans.
Beth-
Now, I like this story very much. I would love to see more visual references to enhance the story.
for example:
George and Felix with the crow and rat in their mouths. LOVE IT!!
However, I want to know where they chose to haunt. What brings them to this part of the neighborhoods.
...like the elderly neighborhood. Where walkers, and falling stockings are what excite them.
Betty was cornered by boys.
What caused her to go to a ruff part of town. Lacking experience she was chased by a band of horrible young men and cornered under a dumpster.
I would have loved to know more about what that seedy side of town was like. Fires in barrels or something. It may have made a visual impresion on the reader. Innocence of Betty... brought to this side of town by the glowing light and finding herself somewhere not so pleasant.
Ghost in the graveyard was great.
Is this his usual haunt? He knows the lay of the land.I am intrigued.
The story reads like a laundry list of where each cat found humans to haunt. However, it didn't provide me as a reader enough to visualize.
I would like to know that Betty may have been a FAT cat. Having a difficult time finding a place to sqeeze to get to safety.
Or that George and Felix one a scrawny cat and the other with eyes that didn't match.Or a patch of white he always tried to cover to be recognized in the society of black cats. Bosom buddies what are their quirks?
I hope that the comments bring your vision of the story full circle.
I love reading your work and feel as though you forgot to go beyond the narrative into the creative part of this story.
I disagree with Alisa on one point. You are a very creative writer.
I do agree that you can explore more of the visual/descriptive side of your story. You've told me that's a challenge. However, it would enhance your already incredible stories. Your strength is in the original concept, the plot. You develop the story and characters in interesting and clever ways too.
(P.S.) I'm going to stop critiquing. I think I'm doing more harm than good, so I'm giving it up. Feel free to critique my stuff if you wish. Thanks!
Ken: I think Beth IS one of the more creative writters here.
I was commenting only on this story!! My comments were on giving examples of what(in my opinion)might possibly lend direction to the story.
Of course my opinion is my own and should be used only as a point of reference for rethinking the process of being creative --
NOT! to be critical ---- I have always enjoyed and do enjoy the huge variety of story lines that comes from this forum.
As far as your thoughts --
Ken!! You would do everyone a disservice if you stopped making comments.
If we as a group can't share another view point in the confinds of this family style blog.
Then where can we get the comments that will help us grow and develop our craft.
Shame on you!!!
More of us should be commenting!!
Even if no change is made --
that is ok!! It is that you care enough to comment!! -
- Alisa
My fear is that I'm scaring off those who are just writing for the fun of it, or offending the rare person who takes negative feedback as an attack on their ego, or their intellect, or something. I'm not sure what.
I don't want people to avoid writing out of anxiety that I'm going to correct their story, or to avoid getting correction from me or others. That's all I'm thinking. I want everyone to enjoy the process of writing.
The other thing is that it takes a lot of my personal time to edit each story. I spend a lot more time working on everyone's stories than I should. It's practically a part-time job. Only I'm not getting paid to do it.
I ask myself a lot of questions as I read, and I hope it helps, but I fear that most people don't care much about editing their pieces because they don't have any expectation of having them published. Or becoming writers.
So why take the time to edit them? I don't know, that's what I'm asking myself.
I suppose if you want me to edit your story, ask me. If not, stay quiet, and I'll stop editing your stories.
Maybe if I stop correcting people's stories then people will start posting again. I'm not sure.
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