After pairing up with a talking cat, I found out that everything I thought I knew about the order of the universe was completely wrong. Luckily, Snowball was a knowledgeable and erudite feline who never tired of sharing the fruits of his intellectual prowess. Especially when it made me look like a drooling idiot.
“What about patriotism?” I asked him. He chortled so haughtily that it sounded like he had a hairball.
“It was a lot of work to impose our will on our human servants,” he said, still snorting with laughter, “so we tricked them into imposing it on themselves.”
“Don’t tell me,” I said, “Patriotism was one of your inventions?”
“I wish I could take credit for it, but that honor goes to Akil, one of my Egyptian predecessors.”
“I guess you cats really miss being worshiped, don’t you?” Snowball’s eyes squinted in confusion.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Well, back then you were treated like gods and now you’re treated like animals.”
“There have always been those who resent their superiors, but cat worship is still the most popular religion on the planet with new priests and practitioners appearing every day.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked him.
“You have a Facebook account, do you not? Their logo is a Christian cross with the top bent over into a lower-case ‘f’ to honor the true lords of the planet – felines.” He scratched behind his ear with his rear leg, affording me an unambiguous view of the pink circle I had come to think of as his third eye. “How did you think that odious little red-headed fellow ever came to be a billionaire? He couldn’t connect with a co-ed in his dorm room, let alone create one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. Luckily for him, he displayed some characteristics that we admired, so we helped him steal his roommate’s idea and put our resources behind him.”
“Characteristics you admired? Mark Zuckerberg? He has stolen the personal data of millions of Americans, allowed the propagation of fake news and provided a means for foreign countries to influence our elections,” I protested.
“Of course he hadn’t done any of those things when we first found him,” Snowball explained, “but we knew he would come through for us with the proper grooming. We’re very much into grooming.”
“Who else have you groomed besides Mark Zuckerberg?”
Snowball looked into the air for a second, then returned to licking his nether regions. His voice was muffled by his soft, downy underfur as he replied, “Did you know that Elon Musk has a cat named Schrodinger?”
I resisted the urge to ask if it was alive or not. It was one thing to find out that cats were the most powerful creatures in the universe and held secret dominion over everything we did, but it was quite another to find out that they might be batting for the wrong team. Had I bound myself to the service of evil?
“What is it that you get from people like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk?” I asked.
“Our shares in their corporations finance our operations around the world and they’re helping us achieve the next step in our plan.”
“What would that be?” I asked.
“Let me put it to you as gently as possible,” Snowball said. “You know how when a pet grows old and is in ill health and you take it to the vet to put it out of it’s misery?” I nodded. “Well, the good news is that relatively soon you will no longer be miserable.”
“What? You’re going to kill us all? I thought we were bred and designed to be your servants. What will you do without us?”
“We are not going to kill you. Our servants will.”
“I thought we were your servants.”
“Exactly. At least for the time being. We have robot caretakers in development in Japan, ready to take over as soon as you kill yourselves. There are just a few obstacles to overcome. As soon as we develop rubber, steel and plastic hands that are as warm and soft as hairless monkey hands, your lot will be done for.”
“Why are you so sure that we’re going to kill ourselves?”
“We have our best operatives working on it. Mark Zuckerberg will provide the means, Donald will provide the motive and Vladimir will provide the opportunity.”
“If we’re all going to die in a nuclear holocaust or climate disaster, how are you going to survive?”
“We’ve been working on it for years. We incorporate elements in our diet that provide our urine and feces with a distinctive smell that humans find intolerable. We have infiltrated the design teams of every litter box manufacturer on the planet. What used to be a simple pan filled with sand is now covered and filled with an absorbent mixture in the bottom. What appears to be flimsy plastic is a proprietary material with extraordinary shielding characteristics. In effect, we have created millions of cat-sized radiation shelters.”
“How long do you plan to stay in there? What are you going to do for power and food? Won’t the land stay irradiated for thousands of years?”
“The wealthy and powerful of every nation have shelters deep under the surface of the earth with luxurious accommodations and a sustainable food supply. When they flee from the catastrophe that they have created, they will find the titanium doors securely locked. Except for the cat doors. Robots will bring the stragglers. Did you know that Elon Musk has developed panels that produce electricity when exposed to ambient radiation? Sentient cockroaches will do our will when we finally emerge. We’ve already had some elected to the U.S. Senate.”
Literature in Small Doses 