Back To Normal?

A Cat's Tale



Being born, he remembered, was a difficult and messy business. Pain and discomfort had to be endured while being forced from a cosy, warm environment into a harsh, cold and noisy world. Eventually the birth was over. A teet was either placed in his mouth or he instinctively reached out for it. He sucked on it and fell asleep, not bothering to open his eyes. There would be plenty of time for that.

How long he stayed in that sleep-food state he did not know. But now there was work to be done. He opened his eyes. The light was too much. Images swam before him. He blinked a couple of times. At last, he had something to focus on. It was mainly white with some patches of black and brown. It seemed to move rhythmically, like a calm white pond. Good God, he thought, it’s a cat.
Before he could react the animal leaned forward and licked his face.
“Yuk, that’s disgusting. Get off me you minging old moggie.”
“That’s no way to talk to your mother, you ungrateful little stray,” said the cat. His jaw fell open.
“Oh my God. If you’re my mother then I must have come back as a cat.”
“Well done, genius.”

A quick inspection was all it needed to take in the four legs and a tail. He tentatively licked his front paw. It was like sandpaper on velvet. “There must be some mistake,” he said. “I should be in human form. Who’s in charge around here?”
“Get used to it, kid. It’s going to be a long time before you’re walking around on two legs and have opposable thumbs.”
“This is outrageous,” he hissed. “I am an important man with vital work to carry out. I must complete my mission.”
“You can’t do it as a kitten,” said the mother. “Listen kid, you obviously didn’t listen to the rules. They are quite simple. If you’ve been a bad ’un as a human then you get reincarnated as a cat, time and time again. Eventually you can return as a human but only when you are no longer a threat to society.”
“I see,” said the kitten. “Who were you before you became a cat?” The mother purred. “My name won’t mean anything to you but you’ll probably know me by my nickname. I was Jack the Ripper.”
“Wow. I’ve heard of you. Didn’t you kill five women in London?”
“Eleven, actually. There’s about five or six officially attributed to me but there were others, believe me. What about yourself?” The kitten’s chest swelled with pride.
“I was Adolf Hitler.”
“Never heard of you.”
“Never heard of me? I was the most dominant and feared world leader of the 20th century. There has never been a more powerful figure than me. I took over half of Europe and started a war which involved just about every nation on earth. How could you not know who I am?”
“Listen, kid. I spent the whole of the last century as various cats. I didn’t have access to newspapers and news reels. Come on, tell me more about this war.”
“Oh, where do I start? I invaded lots of countries like Austria, Poland, France, Italy, Russia and Belgium. I took it upon myself to wipe out the entire Jewish race. I didn’t quite do it but I killed six million of them. But that’s nothing compared with the Russians. I reckon about 20 million died because of me. There were millions of others if you include the Americans, Canadians, British and most of the rest of Europe.”

The mother sat up. “This isn’t fair. I’ve spent the past hundred and fifty years as a cat and all I did was kill less than a dozen women. But you wiped out half the world. You should have been a cockroach for a couple of thousand years first before working your way up to a cat.”
“Nonsense. I am from a superior race. You are just a common or garden psycho.”
“Ooh Mr Kettle, come and meet Mr Pot.”
“How dare you! I am Adolf Hitler and – ”
“Were, kid. You were.”
“Don’t keep calling me kid. You may address me as Mein Fuhrer.”
“No I won’t. I’ll call you Tibbles.”
“This is outrageous,” the kitten hissed.
“Get over yourself, you little runt.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“I’m sure you’ve been called worse.”
“I could have you shot for this.”
The mother laughed. “No one takes orders from a kitten. You are nothing but a ball of fur and therefore not in the least bit frightening. Get used to the feline life, son. Embrace it.”
“I just want things to go back to normal,” said the kitten.
“This is the new normal,” said the mother, her tone softening. “You are going to spend a lot of time in this form so give up the idea of world domination.”
She leaned forward and licked his ears.
“Why do I get all the nutters,” she sighed.
“What do you mean?”
“A couple of years ago I gave birth to someone like you. He said he was called Mussolini.”
“Benito! How is he?”
“Dead. I can’t remember if he was the one who got hit by a bus or ended up in a kebab shop.”
“Nasty. It ended badly for him as a human too.”
“Yes, he told me. Did you get shot and then strung up by an angry mob?”
The kitten sighed. “I killed myself.”
“Why?”
“We were under siege in Berlin. We had the Russians on one side, the Americans on the other. The war was lost. I got out.”
“Hang on, did I hear you right? You killed tens of millions of people and you still lost?”
“Don’t you start. There are – ”

A hand picked him up and bundled him into a sack. There was only a brick for company. He realised what was happening even before he was thrown into the air.
The cold water scared him and as he sunk to the bottom of the river he knew he would have to start the whole process over again.

THE END