The Pink Cat
I started getting phone calls about the cat before the ink even dried on the letter I had composed.
“So I hear you found a pink cat,” the caller asked.
“How did you find out?” was my reply.
“Why, in the paper, of course. Where else would I have seen it?” she announced as if I should have known that.
“But I haven’t sent the letter to the paper yet,” I said, confused.
“I’m sorry,” she quickly responded. “I must have the wrong number,” she said, then hung up.
The next phone call was even more baffling. “Allo, I heer you are luking to get rid of pink cat,” a voice said with a distinctive foreign accent.
“How did you find that out?” I questioned suspiciously.
“I reed in paper, Da.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “you have the wrong number.” And I hung up.
This continued for many minutes. Each call was more bizarre than the last. All of the callers seemed to know about my finding a pink cat and my desire to find its owner or a suggestion of where I could bring it. And I had yet to notify anyone.
It was then that I heard the knock at the door.
Looking through the peephole, I noticed a man and a woman standing there. The man was tall, wore a dark black suit, and had sunglasses on, which was odd since it wasn’t sunny outside. The woman, a little shorter than the man, wore a dark pantsuit, which went with her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. She didn’t wear sunglasses, but her eyes were well-focused, looking everywhere, surveying the area in front of my house. Both were well built as if they spent most of their life in an exercise training program. They both wore earpieces, and it seemed they were communicating with someone other than each other.
“Who’s there?” I asked.
The woman flashed an ID in front of my peephole for me to see as the man stated, “We’re from Homeland Security.” Her ID was replaced by his. “We need to speak with you about your cat.”
Slowly, I opened the door as they pushed their way past me and told me to shut the door and lock it.
“It’s not my cat. I just found it. What’s this all about?” I asked rather nervously.
“I’m sorry,” said the woman, “but that is classified. We just need to ask you a few questions, and then we’ll gladly take that cat off your hands.”
I was stunned, not knowing what to say.
“Where did you acquire that cat?” the male agent asked.
“I found it nosying around my garden. Since I couldn’t chase it away, I managed to pick it up and brought it inside until I could decide what to do with it.”
“Weren’t you surprised about its color?” asked the female agent.
“Sure I was. I figured it was someone’s special cat. Either they must have dyed the cat pink, or it was a unique mutation of a normal colored one.”
“Interesting,” the man replied. “Did you tell anyone else about it, or did anyone else see it?”
“Not that I know of. I’m kind of isolated here and don’t have many friends.”
“Has anyone else called you and asked about the cat?” the male agent continued.
“Yes, in fact, there were a number of calls, which didn’t make sense, as I hadn’t posted the letter I wrote to the papers yet.”
The female agent jumped into the conversation. “We’re just verifying if you’re telling the truth. We know about the letter and your phone calls.”
“But how? I never even sent…”
“That’s classified information; Need to know only, and you are not considered one who needs to know.”
That ended the conversation. Both agents had received the answers to the questions they were looking for.
I had to sign a Non-disclosure agreement stating that if I shared anything about the cat or this meeting with anyone, public or private, I would suffer some life-threatening consequences.
The female agent picked up the cat and petted it—at least, that is what it looked like. Whatever she did, the cat went limp in her hand after the petting.
I noticed the male agent hanging around my desk. He picked up my phone and examined it. He turned his back to me and appeared to be doing something with the phone before he put it back on my desk. I then watched as he picked up the pen I had used to write my letter and replaced it with an identical one. I was wise enough not to question his actions.
After a quick survey of the room, both agents left with the now limp cat, and I was left alone to try to piece together what had happened.
Sci-fi images of alien cats, or spy cats, with Homeland Security agents or Area 51 agents taking these cats apart to discover some dastardly plot against the United States or Earth, passed through my mind.
Nah, that can’t be it. Can it? Maybe I shouldn’t have written this story.
