Prompt: Cat’s don’t have nine lives. They can have ANY number of lives, which they bet on games of chance with each other at a secret casino.
There is a secret cat-sino somewhere in the desert. Don’t ask me why there is, but there just so happens to be one, a few others, too, scattered about in the world. Inside this cat-sino, approximately three miles west from highway 95, down a set of grooved, plush stairs, so the cats don’t slip, beneath a false layer of san— I mean… Somewhere hidden in the desert, cats go there to play games like normal cats do: black jack, poker, slot machines, craps, and so on. You know, normal cat games. At these tables, plush with old carpet and tightly wound rope, so the cats can scratch while they play, they play their games to determine the most precious prize of them all.
Their lives.
Cats have nine lives, you say, but I say you’re wrong — how do I know you’re wrong? Well, uhm… You see, because I just do; not because I’m an investigator who was hired by a man with no name or nose to discover the secrets of cat-sinos, and who is mercilessly hunted by fuzzball Himalayan headhunters who will stop at nothing to protect the cat-sinos locations and secrets hidden, and not because there’s a hidden room in this particular cat-sino where I sit in a little room behind a false wall, and watch through tiny peepholes in a portrait of an old Persian, and certainly, absolutely not because I’m watching now and typing it on laptop that is slowly dying and has a sticky ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ key — Not for any of those reasons; it’s because I just know, always.
Any-meow, the cats gamble at the tables made for scratching, and pull down the ball on the string arms of slot machines, and roll dice filled with catnip and bells, until finally they win a prize, be it one life or one-thousand lives. It’s all luck, really, though I heard through the wall that an Abby T. had deciphered the algorithm of the game and can correctly guess what her jingling ball will land on in roulette and earn so many lives that she will live for an eternity, but that’s just a rumor and you know how much cat’s love to gossip.
And, that’s the story of this, particular, cat-sino. They come, they play, they live for a long time or don’t, like everyone else — but not me, because they don’t know about this little room behind the wall, and they certainly don’t know about the tiny door — perfectly sized for a cat, not for a middle-aged man who had to suck in his gut to pull himself through — that exits into a hallway by the litter-boxes that leads to the parking garage where my escape vehicle is parked — just in-cat a Himalayans shows up — behind one of the large scratching pillars holding up the garage.
Just remember.
Cat’s don’t have nine lives.
You’re wrong. I’m right, always.
Read my previous prompt, “Like Everyone Else.”
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Micah Castle 