Catopolis

The Chief looked to Scamper. “You’re the quickest paw we have in the corps. Have you the courage to venture the dream realm? From there, we must try to unravel the thread that’s devouring this woman’s hope. If we find the source, and if we can rip a hole in the cause, a cat who’s quick has to slip through the gap and revive her abandoned enthusiasm.”

As Scamper stepped up, Bouncer also shoved in, “If he goes, I stay with him!”

“What’s the use?” snapped the Chief. “If I can’t tear a large enough breach in the problem, the whole situation will go fur-balls up!”

“Just stop me!” Nose to nose and fur bristling, Bouncer glared until the Chief blinked and backed down.

“I’ll hold the rear guard from here,” Fat Sarge soothed, in no mood himself to knock Bouncer’s bulk back in line. He watched the three felines take up the fray, with the wily Chief in the lead.

The dark-doing had become no less voracious, despite the copper cats’ diligence. Scamper was forced to twist this way and that, streaking after the Chiefs orange tail and with Bouncer a bounding gray blur beside him. The hideous blot would have defeated their rush, had their strategy aimed for avoidance. But this stand would not be made here and now, on the solid ground of the world. Chief did not pounce to wrestle but, instead, charged headlong at the morass with the brave intent to pass through.

Scamper and Bouncer jumped just behind. Their leap plunged them into the heart of the darkness and hurled them into forever. For the dream realm by its nature was boundless, wrought of the fantastical stuff that gave rise to perhaps, what if, and maybe-every rainbow color, and more, that the wakeful eye could not see. Here was brilliant light that could dazzle or burn. All shapes of foolhardy fancy and delight, and shadows too, veiled in the beauty of enchanted mystery, or ghastly with ugliness.

Dream-stuff, spun by humans who were alive, seethed with spontaneous intensity. But not here, where year upon year of suppression had hampered the impulse of playful exuberance. The woman’s despair had eaten away both the bright and the dark. What remained was the clutter and waste of neglect, shrouded in dust and cobwebs. Scamper and his companions picked their way between piles of broken toys. Here they passed a bicycle going to rust and there a rowboat with a hole in it. They rattled through sheets of crumpled paper, discarded ideas piled like fallen leaves. They passed storybooks, abandoned in puddles of tears, soggy pages dissolved into pulp.

Scamper sniffed at the misted air. Its scentless cold numbed his nerve ends. Unlike on the streets, where thought-patterns were vibrant, he had no clue where to begin.

“Listen up!” the Chief urged, set on edge himself. “Somewhere under here there will be a force, an old memory that steals away happiness. We must seek out what’s choking the life from this pattern before we can shoulder the fight.”

Scamper pricked up his ears, widened his pupils, and sharpened his feline senses. He peered into the future and saw only tangle: a dreary array of boring activity, obligation, and burdensome days. The detritus of passionless memories closed in, sharp and relentless as traps. Scamper was slight enough to slip through, but Chief and Bouncer needed to squeeze to force themselves past the tight spots. The way grew more dangerous. Fog, and then drizzle, drenched the cats to the skin. More than once they shied back from the crash, as loose objects tumbled and threatened to crush them.

Though the cats were only a whisker apart, leaden silence wrapped them in isolation. They became wrung by pervasive loneliness until feline spirits pined for sunshine and wind, even a storm to shatter the dreadful oppression.

“We have to go deeper,” insisted the Chief. “No matter how hard, there’s no choice. Give in, and we’ll never escape this.”

Icy rain became a torrential downpour. Scamper shook the wet from his ears, more weary than he could remember. Through the barrage, he heard a voice, far off and terribly faint.

Bouncer heard, too, and the Chief turned that way, shoving into a murk, thick as slush, that hampered his mincing steps forward.

“Look at this!” Scamper scraped at the stuff with his claws, freeing a forgotten tatter of praise and encouragement. Even as the drowned figment emerged, a strident old woman’s scolding arose, overpowering the wisp his cat’s paw reawakened.

“Scrub your face! Don’t touch, you’ll break something! That’s disgusting behavior. Don’t do that, stupid, your hands are filthy! Stop tracking mud on the floor! Didn’t your mother teach you any ma

“Come on!” The Chief hissed, his fur bristled. “That’s the snarling knot we have to tear through. If we can’t, the sad woman will let go of life, pushed past the edge by her early conditioning.”

Scamper twitched his puffed tail, more than itching to pounce. “Make any kitten toss its kibbles and milk! Couldn’t that witch take a breath without nattering?”

“Likely not.” The Chief sighed, slinking along on his belly. “Who wouldn’t fade, smothered in safety and peace, with the sparkle torn out of adventure?”

The cats crept up on the entrenched bit of thought-pattern. The vortex had formed as a spider’s web, spun from repetitive scolding. The center was gripped by an elderly person whose lips never smiled and who wore a starched dress, drab as the rags in a broom closet.

Bouncer growled, fur erect. “Puts the curl in my back! Shall we jump her?”

“She’ll have allies,” Chief warned. “Other voices, like hers, will arise to defend her over-protective tyra

Scamper bared his teeth. “Then how many times must we rip the stuffing out of this fragment of memory?”

“For as long as it takes to breach through,” Chief replied. “You’ll know when we’ve triumphed, no question.”

The cats pounced. They tore, teeth and savage claws, rending the howling memory limb from limb. When the carping effigy rose from the shreds, they scrimmaged and mangled its head, broke its neck, and raked it to quivering ribbons. Each time, the monster twitched and reassembled. They attacked, over and over again, until they were breathless and battered.

Bouncer was puffing. Chief seemed done in. The harder the cats fought, the more the rain fell. Their mouths burned with the salt-taste of childish tears, and their eyes stung, gritted with the ashes sown by wounding regrets.

Scamper grappled until he was numb. All but drowned by the endless rain, he kicked and raked at the gibbering fragments. No warning prepared him. Suddenly the thought-stuff he wrestled caved in. The firm ground melted under his feet. Then the dream realm around him dissolved and ran molten, hurling him toward oblivion.

“Let go!” yelled the Chief. “That’s the hole for your entry!”

Soaked, beyond miserable, Scamper scrabbled at air. He could not control his plummeting fall. Twisting, he tumbled out of the dream realm, unable to salve his wrecked dignity.

The Chiefs cry of encouragement dimmed, lost in the maelstrom now rapidly disappearing behind. “Copper! You have to land on your feet! Keep your wits, Scamp! We’ll keep holding the line in the dream realm. But the game that’s afoot in the world is now left entirely up to you!”

Scamper landed on gravel with a spraddle-legged thump. Pelted by a downpour and shaken half out of his feline senses, he yowled with rage and soaked misery.