Emshwiller says: “I had no special cat in mind. I haven’t had a cat for a long time but I like to use animals in my stories in all sorts of ways. We used to have a marmalade cat like this one. Before he was altered, he used to get in a fight every night—came back with torn ears all the time. He went off to college with my daughter where he lived with a batch of students who had a pet rabbit. Then he came back, got fat, and lived a long, lazy life.”
It started with a funny feeling in the bottoms of my feet. Something is going to happen. Perhaps an earthquake. That’s what it feels like. But perhaps terrorists on the way. Whatever it is, something’s coming.
Why did I (of all people), an old lady, get this warning while everybody else is going on as usual? Have I a special talent nobody else has?
But the cat feels it, too. He’s been shaking his paws as if they feel exactly like my feet do. He looks at me as if to say: Why don’t you do something? I tell him, “I will.”
It’s coming closer. I’m getting out of here before everybody tries to leave at the same time.
Though could it be that I’m just feeling the future in general. Disaster will come to all of us and at my age it can’t be that far away. I’ll be as dead as most all of humanity already is. Mother… Dad… Dostoyevsky.
But can I take a chance that this tingly feeling is just because of the normal run of things?
If only I knew when. And also who to tell? I’d like company through all this. Not that a good cat isn’t company enough and I do talk things over with him, but a person would be nice, too. I can’t think of anybody to tell who would believe me or wouldn’t just get in my way as I try to leave in search of safety.
That tingly, rattley vibration is getting worse, rising from the ground, up through my feet and rattling my spine. This morning I could even feel it from my fifth floor apartment. I ran for the central hallway. I stood there for twenty minutes. Then I grabbed Natty, put his harness and leash on him, and ran outside and down the block and huddled under a tree. Again I waited. The cat was shaking as much as I was. A sure sign that I’m right. I ran farther but had to stop to catch my breath in a doorway near the park.
Here, in a place where pigeons are always wobbling along, there wasn’t a single one. Not one! That scared both of us even more.
I must have looked just how I felt because somebody asked me what was wrong. I said, “Just a dizzy spell is all.” I didn’t want anybody else to know. I wanted to get out and safely away before any of the others found out something was going to happen.
I check the feelings in my feet again. I feel a rumbling for sure, by now so strong I wonder why everybody doesn’t feel it. Well, all the better then, it gives me plenty of time to escape.
A mountain top would be a good place, nothing could fall down on me from up there and water wouldn’t reach, but there aren’t even any hills around here. I’ll head west, though I don’t know if there’s time, but out in the country will be better than the city. I’ll bring all my money and my raincoat.
I go home, eat a big last meal, pack a knapsack with cat food (it’ll do for both of us), my vitamins, and go. I bring Natty in the top part of the knapsack. He doesn’t mind. He’s glad I’m finally doing something.
I ask a taxi driver to take me twenty dollars worth towards the west. He’s nice, he takes me even farther. He doesn’t care that I sneaked a cat into his cab. I ask him to come with us. We’d like the company. Especially such a nice man and with a cab to ride in. I tell him why I was getting away. I say we should hurry before the roads get too crowded with people trying to escape. He doesn’t say so, but I don’t think he believes me. He prefers getting back to work.
So I start walking. He drove me a good ways into the suburbs. I never expected to get this far in just one day. Even though I’m still scared, this is all turning out fine. I stand still and check the bottoms of my feet again, and, yes, no doubt about it, danger, though I keep reminding myself that life is just temporary anyway and at my age even more so.
But right now I have to find someplace to spend the night. I don’t want to use up any more of my money than I have to. It has to last at least to the Rockies.
I keep walking well into the night. I was hoping to get beyond the little houses and warehouses to farm land, but no such luck. I wanted to sleep in some country place, a forest or a park. Finally I’m too worn out to go on. I drop where I stop. There isn’t a bush or a tree in sight, just warehouses, and airplanes keep coming over low. I’m so tired they don’t bother me except for waking me up early in the morning. I worried the cat would get scared and run away, but he stayed with me. I keep his leash on most of the time but I don’t attach it to anything. He’s too old to run off.
So off we go again (after sharing a cat food breakfast). How come nobody else is trying to escape? Most people, are heading into the city as if everything was just as usual. Is this a special talent of mine worthy of study just as animals predict earthquakes? Should I tell a scientist about it before whatever it is happens so that when it does happen, I’ll have predicted it? How does one find a scientist? And it has to be somebody interested in this sort of study. I would be surprised if I pass a lot of universities along the way. If the danger is as close as it feels, I’ll have to hurry and find somebody.
I’m so happy with our progress, I take us to a diner for lunch. Fish for Natty and a hamburger for me.
That night I find a good place, nine feet high, four feet long, three feet wide. What passes for a window. I won’t say where, though it mustn’t be thought that I’m ashamed of it. Actually I don’t think I’m ever ashamed of anything of that nature, not even that I’m getting rather dirty and mussed.
By now I’m far enough not to have to worry about a tsunami, but this is tornado country now. Natty and I keep studying the sky.
Wherever I end up, I would like a small tree. That is, if I can’t have a large one. Living in the city I haven’t had a tree of my own of any sort since I came here long ago. Also I’d like a nice round lichen-covered rock that heats up during the day and stays hot all evening. I’d like a place to build a fire and a log beside it to sit on. I’d like a nice bed for Natty.
I buy myself a shopping cart to carry stuff like water bottles. I’m getting ready for crossing places in middle America where the rest stops are far between.
I ask for rides in the parking lots, but if I don’t get one I just start walking. And I usually don’t get one. I don’t blame the people; after all I’m dirty and raggedy and my bundles and the shopping cart are bulky and don’t fit in anything but trucks. If I saw me humping along with all this junk I’d take me for a crazy person. I wouldn’t pick me up either. Even so, now and then I do get a ride. Usually in an old pickup that isn’t going far.
I forget how many days it’s been, but up to now everything is serene with the world. Of course I’m not getting the news. Maybe a disaster has already happened and I don’t know about it, though you’d think people in diners and rest stops would be talking about it. I always read the headlines in the newspapers when I pass by them. (I don’t waste money on them.) And you’d think, if the disaster had happened, that my feet would stop sending me all these signals. Natty’s, too. Though maybe after one disaster, there might be another right behind it.
Ahead, you can see the road winding up a hill. I dread trying to climb it pushing my cart. But before I get to it, there’s a town and I pass one of those little country hospitals. It’s right here, handy. I’m going in and have them check my feet. It might be important for them to study me. For omens. Maybe Natty’s, too.