Catopolis

No tip-off had reached the copper-cat dispatcher, back at the police barracks stables. On the hour that Scamper left on patrol, the Chief had been napping, curled on a straw bale, the reports off the streets uneventful enough that no vigilant copper would wake him.

“You’ll wissssh you’d lissstened,” insisted the rat. “Thessse mice lived in sssugarplum plenty behind the wallsss of the passstry ssshop.” With a gnashing of incisors, the creature scuttled. Its last word emerged through the rustle of trash, as it resumed its noisome scavenging. “A nexusss knot’sss forming. My warning’sss the firssst.”

“Get flea dipped, pal.” Scamper twitched his damp hair, not impressed. Rats lied. The whole scumbag lot were a furtive breed, naked of tail, and too garrulous for scruples or dignity. Scamper flicked his whiskers forward, alert. Though loath to rely on what might be a hoax, he was a street copper down to the bone, born to patrol the back alleys. No use wishing such work was the good life, snacking on tuna fish out of a can.

Still, this was not the dockside, and he, dapper fellow, was no rip-eared tom, assigned to a thug’s beat in the slums. The sort of people who started dark-doings seldom strayed from the seedier neighborhoods. No hint of dire trouble blew on the wind. The deserted buildings wore nothing but their usual night-time shadow.

“I’ll be declawed,” Scamper grumbled, “before I ask the Chief to send a back-up squad on a rat-race!”

Scamper loped past the maw of a parking garage and slipped through the short cut under a culvert. Now across the street, he emerged at the pastry shop, but he found no hysterical mice. Only the drunk he had rousted up, earlier, reeling on his inebriated way. The bum shuffled along, a sad, lonely creature in a tattered coat, mumbling admonishments to his reflection in the street side windows. The fellow seemed harmless. Scamper widened his pupils, just to make certain. He engaged the sixth sense, peculiar to cats, and sca

Nothing emerged. The residue streamed by the homeless man’s thoughts spun off maudlin regrets, not one of them vicious or threatening. Unlike some humans, he blamed no one else for the wretchedness of his condition. His sorry nostalgia stayed self-contained, a wistful murk too diffuse to take fire, or fuse into entangling spite.

Copper-cats hunted the streets for such things. Where acres of concrete replaced living trees, the whisk of the wind raised no rustle of twigs and leaves; here, no falling water or meandering brooks erased the filmy detritus of human afterthought. The work fell to cats, to break the ephemeral ribbons before they burned black and became entangled. That insidious wrack was obvious to felines. Yet people themselves seldom noticed the tempests, unreeled in their wake like thrown litter.

Scamper prowled on. Nothing dangerous lurked here! Surely the feckless rat led him astray. No human seeking a fight walked abroad, and nothing spawned by a late-going hustler held the passion to weave a dark-doing. Nary a trace of wicked intent required a cat scan to chase down and disperse.

“May a plague of fleas chew that rat to perdition!” Scamper huffed, turned left to sweep the back alley that harbored the strip. He stalked past a blinking storefront selling electronic gadgetry and another crammed with tourist novelties.

The recessed doorway beyond sheltered two lovers, breathless with laughter and tender kisses. Contentment lit sparks of delight in their presence. The air danced with showering flurries of gold, wrought by their giggles and happiness. Scamper knew his job. Most agile of his copper colleagues, he pounced on those delectable fragments. Before their shine faded, he batted that merriment into a tingling wad. The finishing touch required cat-magic. Scamper swatted the captured billow of joy under his extended claws.

The shreds scattered. Whirling like falling stars, they sank with a glittering flourish into the pavement.

A cat’s eye could discern the faint sheen that remained. Taut whiskers could sense the vibration. Whether a starved feral, or a pampered pet on a stroll, every feline would be tempted to roll with abandon, paws in the air. In back-scratching pleasure, they would soak up the run of sweet luck that now welled from the sidewalk. Serendipity, also, would touch the lives of unsuspecting pedestrians. A school child might find an escaped coin and buy candy. Or a weary mother might sigh with relief as her cranky infant changed mood to delight. Here, an artist might stumble on fresh inspiration, or a worried man might soften his heart and take pause to lend help to a beggar.

The wide world was alive with such wonders. Wherever people shed formative thoughts, the curious nature of cats would make sport with the exuberant residue. They knew to play tag with the colorful aspects, and weave them into the manifest world.

When the couple departed, Scamper shoved off, no little bit smug that the rat’s doom-and-glooming had given him a false lead.

A woman rushed past, heels clicking as she bustled into the subway. Her fizz of anxiety sent bubbles of energy bouncing off the lit street lamps. Scamper sensed no threatening darkness swirling behind her brisk footsteps. If she resented her job, she did not hate her boss. Though her day had been riddled with disappointments, she did not nurse any poisonous urge to dump her malaise on her coworkers. Her loose discontent would not form a vortex. No quivering, plucked string of entanglement waited to snag into other folks’ unresolved angst.

Scamper detected no stirring of havoc that required destruction with claws and teeth. No suspect thrill raised a hump in his back, or bristled him to spitting temper. Nose working, tail high, he rounded the corner, jinked down the side street, and skirted the packing crates discarded behind the herb shop.

The narrow alley ahead enticed with the rich scent of cat-mint. Most of the neighborhood’s swaggering toms had dropped in for a heady nip. The randy chorus at the Cat-ATONIC Bar surrounded a svelte Siamese. Amorous loungers watched rivals, slit-eyed, while the husky Maine Coon named Bouncer licked his claw sheaths, prepared to break up snarling fights. Tempers ran short, in the late summer heat. The scrappier males were on seasonal edge, hot to test their machismo before the fur-ripping brawling of autumn.

Scamper licked his sharp teeth. As eager himself for a rambunctious change, he marched past, primed to impress the slinky pussies who danced at the Cat-Ass-Trophy Club. Yet tonight, the stair with the balustrade loomed empty. No black beauties or coy little calicoes beckoned him on.

Instead, Scamper found himself knocked on his haunches by cats pelting helter-skelter. Fur on end, the whole kit’n caboodle ran in fear for their lives, darting under the sewer grates or streaking for shelter beneath the parked cars on the side street.

Scamper tensed, primed for unca

“Not on my turf!” Scamper snarled, and crouched. He launched into his best fighting leap. Yet his dagger-clawed swipe missed the coiling disturbance. Again, he was caught by surprise as a tendril snaked out of nowhere and clobbered him sideways.

Scamper picked himself up, spitting curses. The dark-doing lurked in the apartments above! No thanks to the rat, for withholding that detail. Such ill-news should have been dispatched in the first place, by way of a reliable messenger. Situations always turned hairball, whenever a rat told the truth!