Thought it was just fleas...
When my beloved
cat Coco came in the other day, I was a bit shocked. She had some
raised areas on her skin, and scratched at these often. I just
cursed and went for the flea spray. But when I spritzed her, she
just stood there. Okay, what gives – usually she will go
running for the hills when I deploy the spray bottle. Not this time.
She just stood there, as if to say please make them go away.
So I sprayed
her all over and under, as good as I could. The bumps on her skin
moved around, as if irritated. But they stayed in place, and I
didn't see anything fly off of her. She smelled like an
insecticide bath, but still stood there. Finally, she wandered off
into the living room and lay down. I watched her for a bit, then
resumed my other activities. Dishes had to be washed, clothes put
away, that sort of thing. I saw a movement out of the corner of my
eye, and turned. Something had detached itself from the back of the
cat! I tried to follow it, but it was a blur in the air, and soon
hid somewhere.
I turned my
gaze back towards the cat. Her back was moving around some. She
looked back at me, and mewled sadly. As if to say,
Something is
really wrong here, and I don't know what.
I knelt down,
and tried to pet her, lumps and all. She yowled again. The lumps
moved, so I tried to peel back fur and see what they were. A whitish
bug flew right up at my eyes, and I naturally flinched. It darted
off sideways, and also disappeared. I turned my gaze back at poor
Coco's flank. The spot vacated by the flying bug had an angry welt
and a spot of blood. No wonder she was yowling. But other bumps on
her flank were still moving around. I peeled away fur on some of
these, and a few of the flying things took off. But a couple just
stayed, moving gossamer wings.
I tried peeling
one off of her. It came out slowly, and Coco yowled, jumped up and
ran off. I looked at it, but it fluttered fast, and escaped my grip.
“Okay, cat,
I'm just trying to help you out.” I let her and the bugs be a
moment, busying myself with dinner preparation. She crept back
around me, as if in forgiveness stance. So I quickly knelt down,
grabbed her, and tried prying another of the damned bugs off. It
seemed to disintegrate in my fingers. But she bled a bit, yowled,
and struggled. Then she leaped out of my hands and ran off to hide
under the bed.
“I wish you
would get back here and let me help you get those goddamned things
off of you.”
I knelt beside
the bed to see where she was, and was greeted with a low growl.
“Okay, suffer
then. Be that way.” I rose and headed back into the living-room.
Three of the flying bugs were circling in the air now. What the
hell are those? Moths?
As I got closer
to eye them, one took a swoop right at my eyes. I swatted at it with
my hand, and felt a stinging pain. “Ouch! You sonovabitches.”
Bug spray
might not work on these things. I need a swatter of some kind!
So I found a
magazine, rolled it up, and prepared to go to war. I looked at my
stung hand, and there was a spot of blood. Almost like it had
jabbed me with something. They kept circling around the middle of
the living room. If they were moths, they would have gone towards a
light, I reasoned; but these just stayed in the middle of the room.
These things
look almost....intelligent. As if they know what they are doing.
I held the
rolled-up magazine partway up, so I was able to raise it when they
all came at me at once. I swatted several times, and made contact
with my hand. It was like swatting something metallic.
I saw one on
the floor, and a second was stuck somehow to my magazine-swatter.
The third was nowhere to be seen. Ouch! It got me on the
neck. I smacked at it with a hand until it dislodged, and fell to
the ground. My neck bled as if stung by a large insect. I was
beginning to feel panic.
If three of
these are that bad, what about all of the others on Coco's back?
I had to take
stock, so I retreated to my office. None were to be seen in there.
I sat down heavily, and pondered what to do. I couldn't just leave
Coco. But if I took her to a vet, maybe they could deal with these –
whatever they were. I had never seen anything like them, of course.
And then the random thoughts crept into my mind. “Intelligent...
Organized.....Metallic. It couldn't be...
A situation had
presented itself that should have been impossible, but here it was.
It just wouldn't go away. I thought and thought, turning it over in
my head. And then when one of the silvery moths flew into the
office, slow and deliberate, I knew what I had to do.
I presented my
open palm for it to land on. It did so. Instead of sticking me
right away, it seemed to sniff around with some tiny whiskers, that
tickled. I held still and let it do its thing.
Soon, I felt it
penetrate my skin with a few tiny things (wires?). I felt some
strange sensations going up my arm. These subsided, and then there
were some noises going on in my mind. I tried to direct some
thoughts back towards the source. And after sitting there for an
hour, letting the Moth-creature direct my thinking, we had
established a simple language. Pictures of a crude spacecraft, a
planetary system far away. Earth, our forests, our weather. My
cat. They had tried communicating with Coco, poor thing. Soon,
there were about twenty of the silver-moths coming into the room and
landing on my skin, hands, face. But Coco was running around the
house now. I stole a glance at her. Her back was clear. She came
up to me, and let out some meows, as if to say, Thanks for
getting them off of me – and onto you!
But I subsumed
myself into internal chatter back and forth. The moths were actually
cybernetic explorers. And they were using my nerve pathways to talk
to me – and each other. I tried to help them as much as I could.
But soon I began to get a nasty headache, and my muscles were
twitching and aching. I finally managed to send some pleas to the
creatures.
Thank you
for telling me about your mission and your location and everything
else. I have tried to help you. But my body is wearing out from
your data exchanges. Please could you give me a rest, or go find
another host?
'We will
find another host. Thank you very much for your assistance. As a
token reward for your help, we have given you some improvements.
Be sure to take daily vitamin supplements. This is a must, for your
survival, human. Take your supplements. Thank you again, and
farewell. Open your so that we may go.
They all rose
off of me as one, a fleet of 20 or so. They stood off about two
feet. Then I said “well, duh.” and went to open my door and let
them out. They executed a pirouette, and then flew out the door,
into the dusk. I shut the door, and looked over my hands, arms.
There were no marks or bites.
Did I just
imagine this?
But then my
memory replayed segments of the experience, as if on demand. I
watched in my mind's eye crystal clear as it replayed snippets,
concluding with me letting them out the door only a moment ago. A
final scene was of me swallowing a few multivitamins.
Wow, but my
memory seems to have improved or something. Was that one of the
improvements?
I went and
found coco, who had jumped up on her favorite perch, my office chair.
She was licking the areas of her back they had tried to probe. But
when I softly stroked her, she purred, as if to say, “All is well
now.”
Some facts crept
into my head about giving her some special diet cat food. As I have
since discovered, my brain is operating more and more like a
supercomputer. I have near total recall, and photographic at that.
I can read a book, synthesize it into my knowledge database inside,
and remember everything. It is fantastic. But if I skip taking
vitamins, I get nasty headaches, and I mean head-splitters. So I
guess I'm forevermore addicted to multivitiamin-minerals. I took
those anyway, before all of this.
I've been
watching the news to see if anything has been reported on a “First
Contact” event with an Extraterrestrial civilization. Nothing
there. Just a few reports of a silver moth infestation. And a
surprising spike in our local schoolkids scoring at the top of their
rank on the SAT test. Coco sits on my lap, watching with me. After
each story finishes, she looks up at me and gives out a low grunt.
I can swear she
is giving me a grin, as if to say, how about that, huh? She
seems to understand human language now. And I mean literally
understand it. I must have the first cat in history that can truly
understand the spoken word.
But knowing my
Coco, she will still ignore me, whenever she feels like it. Feline
nature never changes.
