by Horia Hulea
Chapter 12
"Well, well, well … look who's back from observing the 'humanz'," said the rat with her mouth full.
"We has to continue the mishun. We has to go to da future ten-thousand years."
"Why, aren't we the smartest kitty in the whole wide world?" Munch, munch, munch. "Which is actually true, since there are no other of your species in present times?" Burp. "Pray, tell me why ten-thousand years?"
"Because we must jump back and forward, back and forward, and then wait a whole day! Master Scientist said so, and he is da …master … of sciences."
"In case you didn't notice—and you didn't!—the 'humanz' have accelerated their rate of advance. Apparently in the last five-thousand years, they raised so fast from cave dwellers to actually building ships and houses with roof tiles and all that stuff that has civilization written all over it. Not only that, but apparently they have domesticated all the animals they previously hunted and ate just so they won't run out of animals to hunt and eat! Smart, right? I just checked their very tasty books, and it's all very, very interesting. However, I couldn't find any trace of the ceramic filling technology." Munch, munch, and gulp. "Which means they are not there yet! Soooo, since I am the really smart one, I just made a statistical extrapolation, and the jump we need to do to catch the extinction is"—drumrolls with her little paws—"356 years."
"What about Old Tom?"
"Ooow, making friends already? Well, go say goodbye to him, mister, and tell him you'll be back in 356 years."
And so it happens that the same evening one more shiny pebble is put in the ground, for the future catkind to learn of the great monkeys' advancement in building ships and houses with roof tiles and all the other stuff that says civilization … but which unfortunately won't last for a million years.
Whoaaam! The flash of light ends in a bright halo, and here they are: a cat and a rat, staring at a skyscraper. Five days ago, here was a cave with Mog, son of Mog, picking his nose and comparing boogers with his son, Mog. And yesterday here was a wooden house where Old Tom was writing his codex with religious fever.
And now, the cat is almost run over by a car.
A car!
Where are the houses and the mud roads? Where are the bridges and buildings with roof tiles on top? No wonder these monkeys left nothing for posterity. They were too busy destroying their own evidence by themselves.
"Uh-oh! Too many hominids around!" the telepath rat thinks to the cat. "Quickly, grab me by the scruff and trod your way out!"
Open spaces with nowhere to hide are a bad sign for a big rodent. Especially when lots of giant feet are ready to stump on your fragile, tender tail. So the rat takes a very convenient lift in the cat's mouth, swinging and humming happy like a toddler until one menacing shadow blocks their way with dark intentions.
"Oh, what a brave little kitty! Did you catch that ugly, ugly rat all by yourself?" asks the nice little lady that appears out of nowhere
"Meow!" says the kitty, pulling out of his pocket the biggest, most innocent kitty eyes and putting them on a face as cuddly as you can get.
"I bet it took you a lot of courage to hunt it, you little predator, you!"
The little predator drops the "dead" rat and starts pawing on her head as if playing with it.
Oh, please, can this be even more embarrassing? thinks the "dead" rat.
"Meow!" The cat plunks the rat.
The old lady kneels and starts petting the kitty, talking as if cats could understand her.
"Oh, the poor, poor little kitty, all lost by itself in this big city! Nobody to take care of you and having to eat filthy sewer rats. Poor, poor you."
Yea, poor, poor kitty, the rat continues with her mental talk. And I'm not filthy, lady! I just happen to have a very fashionable fur! Patches like these are the latest trend to come in forty-million years! But what do you know? You'll be extinct by then, ha!
But the kitty ignores any rats that are supposed to be dead and, like any devious little feline, picks its two deadly weapons: the feet rubbing and the soul-warming purr.
And what do you know? The feline charms work and win in an instant the good-hearted human. One hour later, the nice little lady is taking home her newly adopted pet, not forgetting to pass first by the pet store to buy the best food a kitty can dream.
Can the kitty say no to such kindness? Who is he to refuse such a good-hearted woman? You can't just disappoint nice people that offer you yummies, can you? All that time traveling business sure makes you hungry and tired.
But what about the filthy sewer rat? Wasn't the kitty supposed to take his best time travel buddy along?
Well … no use in carrying a dead sewer-dwelling rodent after you, is there?
