PATTON'S SAD TAIL- VOL. X

As soon as the master freed me from my sling mobile, as soon as my hands (and dead tail) hit carpet, I stopped sleeping.  My tender new hands began manipulating the world around me, and my mind began expanding in response.  I could feel evolution carrying me into the realm of the soon to be known.  I felt no fatigue, my forward facing, stereoscopic predator pupils wide with new understanding.

The master observed me with awe; the transformation beyond anything he'd hoped.  Plato strangely kept no distance, his patronly nature overriding any innate fear.  Somehow I could tell he knew this was all for him, so he wanted to see how it took.  Sadly, neither of them could match my boundless stamina.  I found myself locked away from them for large periods of time while they recharged their feeble minds. 

Left to my experimental solitude in those early days, that's when I could focus on the extent of my evolution.  Ordinary household objects; a ball, a pen, a knife, those became my instructors.  The more I used them, the more they taught me.  A book?  No way, that's asking too much.  I picked one up, opened it...and stared at the funny little shapes on the page.  Still, I knew they were letters, strung delicately together to form words, arranged carefully to form passages, compiled deliberately to express meaning.  Written language.  I was confident it would be easy prey.

Instinct guided me, without explicit direction, through the pillars of higher intelligence.  My thumbs had unlocked my mind, the other requisite parts were already there.  Opposable thumbs complimented forward sight, acknowledgement of at least the existence of written language, and bipedalism.  Bipedalism...  Come on, you can do it.   Son of a shit!  I couldn't do it, not without a functional tail.

Here, if you don't believe me, let Michio Kaku help explain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu7VulZUUdE

The most underrated part of a cat is its tail.  It provides balance, communicates, and alerts one to danger.  Through some fault of my own (Okay, most.) mine had been decommissioned.  Yeah, I was a fat, clumsy sod before all this, but now...Jesus.  While the others slept (Damn, did I used to sleep that much?  Probably more.) I tested my dexterity.  Even on all fours, with my sensitive hands, chunky legs, and limp tail, I'd stumble helplessly back and forth across the living room.  Without counterbalance, my huge, hairy ass swung around like a drunk hooker.  I couldn't even climb the stairs without doing several faceplants on the way up.  This was bullshit.  I had become the world's smartest, and clumsiest, feline.

Bipedalism?  Out of the question.  Oh no, I tried.  I'd get a running start, lift my hands on the ground, and throw my body above my legs.  Stupid, dysfunctional hind quarter.  Like a toddler taking its first steps, I'd teeter, I'd totter, I'd tumble, and I'd inevitably slam into a coffee table or book case.  Every now and then, the master would come out to see what the hell was going on.  My instinctual looks of innocence had been replaced by those of disgusted frustration.  F*** off!  He started to worry about me.

Seeing the mounting futility in the quest for the upright walk...What?  I'm not stupid, and I'm not insane.  I'm not insane.  I'm not insane.  I concentrated my efforts elsewhere.  The manipulation of things; objects both inanimate and otherwise, language, the television remote, and as I would soon find out much, much more.  My thought began to expand beyond my mind.  I could feel them surround me, looking for a conduit, a telepathic ground.  I could feel the chemicals in my body organize themselves beyond parasympathetic limitations.  Unheard, unseen communication saturated my aura.  What have I become?  My efforts to process the changes finally exhausted me.

But still, I did not sleep.  Finding sanctuary atop our tall, second hand cat tower, I stood guard, and guarded.  Self awareness paralyzed every part of my soma save the tail, ironically leading this front.  Stupid tail.  My metabolism slowed, conserving energy for higher functions.  I stopped eating.  I stopped excreting.  I stopped moving.  I sat on my keep and looked out the window, but did not see anything but what came from within.  Tentacles of unlocked neural energy extended outward, searching for reciprocation.  Lucid hibernation consumed me.  That's when the Collective answered.  That's when I knew that what I'd become should never have been.

Now please, let me think, I'm imagining a book.

Showoff.

That's better.

PATTON'S SAD TAIL- VOL. IX

Needless to say…

Oh, sorry.  Rather…requiring reiteration…

Ugh.  Let me just make it perfectly clear, I started out…touched.  From birth, I carried a basest natural inability to differentiate and control my emotions.  My master’s arms, hands, and head bear the scars of my psychological hyperactivity.  I mean, he’d be rubbing my belly with his hand and I’d be rubbing his hand with my face.  Happy, happy.  Purr, purr.  And then, SNAP!  Purr, hiss!  Growl, claw, BITE!  My pupils would become saucers of hate.  I was still happy, I think, but in that rapturous, murderous way.

“M-er-F-er!”  The master would yank back his arm, claws and teeth tearing at tender epidermis, and we’d be done. 

What?  That means I love you.  Destroy… 

The events of my sad tail, you know, the adoption, self-sacrifice, operation, and Ghasm, only served to magnify my pre-existing ‘condition’.  Yes?  I was a cat.  I mean, I’m still a cat, but…I mean…Shut up.

All gone!

After a few ‘days’, my caretaker (master)…servant…you will bow, changed the bandages on my forelimbs again.  He’d been keeping me pretty doped up to avoid a repeat of Ghasm’s exploding paws with me.  I was still mostly unaware of my new gadgets.  He’d also been slowly decreasing the dosage as I healed.  This time, I had focus; fuzzy, numb focus.  He twisted off the moist, yellow stained strips of gauze as if trying to add suspense.  I’ll tell you this, cats aren’t much for suspense, unless they create it.  Get on with it.

Surprisingly, disappointment smacked me in the whiskered nose the first time I laid eyes on my new hands.  Swollen and inflamed, the ends of my arms looked like a bunch of hairy caterpillars sewn together with fishing line.  They didn’t have full mobility due to the bandages and grafts healing.  Foreign, uncomfortable, unnatural; these constructs freaked me out a little.  For the first time, I felt unsafe with my own body.

Noticing my stressed reaction to the surgically implanted tumors, Nurse Daddy shot a dose of happy juice down my throat.  I calmed.  He tenderly drew my hands up to eye level and squeezed.  Just a pinch on the top of the paw and the metacarpal pad was all it took.  With the help of narcotics, anxiety turned instantly to amazement.  From each hand, where my primary phalanx used to be, extended four long, sharp claws; nano-composite, ceramic-tungsten alloy mini-rapiers.  You heard me.  They’ll never dull, no matter how many lives they take, be it couch…or man.  And from each side of each hand shot a thick, fully articulated, carbon fiber, silicon wrapped…thumb.  I had four f***ing thumbs!  Deus ex evolution, bitches!

I looked into my bitch’s…I mean master’s eyes.  I mean really, intently, coherently made eye contact with him, and with all sincerity thought…What the f*** you want me to do with these?

He started manipulating the artificial digits, testing their connections and strength.  I could feel the flexors and extensors move back and forth.  My body remembered, mostly, but a myriad of new sensation arose.  My body, my mind, processed novel connections, sensory and motor inputs and outputs never before experienced.  That’s when the change…really started to change me.

He smiled with all conviction.  The procedure had held, my body had accepted his gift.  He released my hands, patted me on the head, and squirted some more of the cat-a-tonic under my tongue.  He then pulled the harness tight under my armpits, reducing upper body mobility, and stood above me.  His gifts had been accepted, they would remain unwrapped.

I lived and slept in that wheelie-hammock for…damnit…weeks?  I give up.  Anyway, it was my personal carriage and I ran around in it like a toddler on meth.  My hands continued to heal, and my being continued to evolve under their direction.  The more I used them, the more they educated me.  Soon, the hands took their rightful place in my new existence.  I was Patton 2.0h-shit!

Finally, my master unleashed me from my mobile anti-gravity sling.  Did I forget to mention that?  Just kidding, but seriously, it worked to offset the effects of gravity and keep me from flopping to the friggin floor, so what would you call it?  Thought so…anti-gravity sling.  Say it!  Thank you.  Finally back on all...fives?  Come on, tail, sitting limp on the floor.  I looked up at my incompetent surgeon.  You’re shittin’ me.  Okay, tail, move!  I hate you.

I hope you now understand why I’m so…unbalanced.  To be continued…

Now go away, I’m mourning my sad tail.

Jup, it's pretty much like that.

 

PATTON'S SAD TAIL- VOL. VIII

This may be a bit a jumble.  Shut up.  I was in shock, heavily medicated, and still working with a cat's brain.

"Dude, looks like you been torturing small animals...mumble...mumble...Sweet."

"My idea...mumble...but somehow more than that...murmur..."

Snap.  Fade.

"Flip him on his stomach...pss pss...we're gonna have to go in through the back..."

"Did you get the prototype?  Mumble.  Gauge...murmur..."

Snap.  Fade.

"I got this package...murmur...seems so small..."

"That's it!  Murmur.  Nanocomposite fiber...Teflon...titanium...silicon...mumble...We'll need to remove the distal phalanges...snicker..."

My claws...a-hole.  Snap.  Fade.

"Awesome...mumble...what about the interface?...pss.  pss."

"Grafts from the caudal neural ganglia...mumble...posterior fascia...muscles...murmur...Start the morphine drip...mumble...prep the nootropic wash..."

My f***ing tail.  Snap.  Fade.

That's the last thing I remember from before.  Now I know why my tail doesn't work.  My ass is in my hands.  He still better go back and fix that later, like I know he said.

I don't know how long I was out.  Seriously, you're still asking me to reference time?  All I know is the sun was out for a lot longer after I woke up than before.  Make of that what you will, but to me, it seemed like a new existence.  Like I said before (are you even paying attention?), I woke up on my stomach in traction.  I'd been immobilized for god knows how long (hey, I might actually believe now), but I immediately felt stronger; my mind, my body, everything but my g-d tail.  But...you know...butt.

I looked at the world with different eyes, and processed it with a different mind.  I didn't know it at the time, my front limbs still shrouded in bloody bandages, but I would soon tread upon the world with the devil's hands; hands my master had stolen from them and given to me.

Concerning more mundane details of my recovery, the master constructed a nifty little wheeled harness for me.  Like a body sling where I could use my hind legs, in their weakened state, to maneuver, and have my upper body free to heal and rehabilitate.  But this was more than rehabilitation where my hands were concerned.  It was like I had a brand new set of appendages with functionality beyond anything I'd experienced.

My sad tail, of course, was drawn up my side and strapped around my midsection so I wouldn't evacuate myself all over it.  Oh yes, I still had my cat-theter and cat-lostomy bag, but there's nothing my master hated doing more than cleaning my sad soiled tail with a Swiffer mop head.  Poor him.  Shut up.

I soon got used to the new abnormal.  Plato didn't know what to think of me.  He was still nice, and curious, and old, but I was suddenly smarter than he, and he could tell.  He gave me my space, and observed me with an oddly cocked head as if he was seeing how the procedure took...and whether it would work on him.

I have to tell you something else.  Don't be afraid, it's for your own safety.  One dead, cold night, a loud thud came from the patio door.  My master slowly shuffled through the living room and drew back the blinds.  I wheeled in after him, my curiosity expanding in multicolored, exponential fractals.  Plato hobbled low along the wall to get a look.

The light on the patio didn't work, but the near full moon shone bright across the light grey concrete.  Then we saw it.  I could tell we all saw it because fear excised any ease in the room.  A thick streak of dark blood trailed down the dirty glass door.  We followed it down to the ground outside, the silence bludgeoning. 

There, in the middle of the smooth concrete, a long, hairy, blood covered object twitched and squirmed.  The master and I leaned in to get a closer look.  Plato slunk back into the bedroom.  He already knew, and was well beyond the age to deal with, the horrors of that convulsing mass.

We looked closer.  It spat and flailed under the late winter moon; black hair, red blood, white bone, a trail of three bloody prints to and from the 'gift'.  The limb of a small animal.  Its distal end a mangled red cabbage, as if detonated by an explosive, its proximal end shredded, as if gnawed from the root.

Our old friend left us a gift, a crimson calling card.  She was still here.  She was watching.  She had chewed her own arm off, and left it for us as a reminder.  We will never be safe...as long as Ghasm lives.

I looked at the calendar.  It was February 14th.  Great.  Happy f***ing Valentine's Day!

Now send a card to someone who cares, I'm fearing a book.

Morphine Drip.

PATTON'S SAD TAIL- VOL. VII

What are you doing?

Telling my story.

To whom?

Whomever is smart enough to listen.

Why?

Seriously?  They need to be warned.  They better get ready for some alien, zombie, super pussy apocalypse shit that's gonna go down if we fail.

I think you're being a little melodramatic.

Listen, Caesar ain't got shit on me.

Planet of the Apes Caesar?

Planet of the Pussy.

You're more like Koba.

No, Ghasm is Koba.

Well, then Plato is Caesar.

Well, then I'm f***in' Brutus.  And hey.

Yeah?

Can you please shut your f***in mind so I can continue my story?

Sorry.

You're my bitch.

Did you at least tell them it wasn't my fault?  I mean...you made me have to keep doing it.

I just go to that part.  I'll let you listen if you can shut your frontal lobe.

Yes sir.

Better be sir.

Sorry about that.  His malignant guilt will, I fear, be the undoing of us all.  God, I wish I was like before in that respect.  It's a f***in' hoot to live your life without guilt.  Now that same shit is starting to get to me...just a little.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, pitter, patter, critter, splatter!  That car messed me up, and didn't even f***ing stop.  My mangled body bubbled from the cold pavement.  I could feel my life drain from me as I drifted in and out of consciousness.  Take that, master.  Ow.

My recollection of the next few hours is that of a waking night terror; flashes of perception detonating amidst an ocean of dark pain.  I could feel my master throw his sweatshirt over me, scoop me off the road, and carry me straight to his car.

"Oh, no.  Oh, Jesus." He kept repeating as he cried.  "Please don't die.  Please don't leave me."  But that was entirely up to him.

That particular car ride wasn't so bad as I recall.  Maybe because I was a bloody heap in the back seat and I knew what was about to happen would...could fix everything.  Of course I didn't know where we were going, but I knew it was where he had been going.  I knew whatever he did there, he'd do to me, but this time, I'd make sure it worked.

On the way over, I could hear my master get on the phone.  I don't remember everything he said, but it sounded like he was calling for someone to meet him...wherever.

"I need you.  I'm ready to show you what I've been doing.  I'm ready to show you everything."

About that time, I could feel myself going into shock.  My body was conserving resources, diverting all life essence to the brain.  I was cold.  I was trembling.  I was really f***ing thirsty.  My mortality so pronounced, I finally actually thought, Are you sure this is a good idea?  Thanks, instinct.

The car stopped.  The surroundings were dark, not the slightest trace of urban light pollution.  My master cradled me out of the back seat, held me gently in one arm, and walked to an abandoned medical supply warehouse.  Ironically, he had card key access.  Wait a minute, aren't you a backup teachy thingy guy?  A definitely shouldn't be allowed access to a place like this guy?

He strapped a hiking headlamp around his noggin, turned it on, and shuttled me down a long, narrow portal.  He then used his card to pop open an unassuming door at the end of the hall and slipped us through.  I began making out images in the dark, but the dim, windowless room still commandeered most detail.  I could see the outlines of a small operating table, an apparatus stand, and lot and lots of tubing, enough for a thousand catheters.

It wasn't until the master flipped on the lights that my optimism shattered.  I finally saw what he'd been up to and it made me a little sick.  Check that, it made me a lot sick, right all over my master's arm and cheap shoes.  Blood...everywhere.  Orange buckets filled with...remnants.  A huge chest freezer with crimson plastic peeking from its icy seal.  What the f*** have you been doing?  Why?  What the hell have I done?  Can I go home now?

How he was granted access to this makeshift, but well appointed, laboratory is another story entirely, but I think you'll be able to put it together, being the brilliant Homo sapiens that you are.  ....kill you all.

My surgeon placed me on the cold, steel operating table.  He then pulled a small vial from one of the cabinets and squeezed a couple drops of happy juice into my mouth.  I think it was the first time since my unfortunate jaywalking incident he looked me in the eyes.  He was in as much pain as I, only his was the pain of regret, and sorrow, and a thousand bad decision compounded by a thousand more.  He was never gonna dig out of this hole without my help.

His look turned momentarily quizzical.  He reached towards my face with his forefinger and thumb plier-like.  I felt a gentle tug on my lower lip, but it wasn't my lower lip he was pinching.  Something else was lodged down there.  I could feel him slide it through my pierced skin.  Hey, I may have been able to see my own back for a minute, but I'll never be able to see my own lip, unless my eyeballs squirt out of my head, and let's hope that never happens.

He finally dislodged the foreign object and held it in front of my eyes.  Is that my f***ing fang?  I tongued around the inside of my mouth to make sure.  Yep, a big, bloody gap in my gums.  That was my f***ing fang he just pulled from my lower lip.  I'm  gonna need that back...eventually.

The happy juice was taking quick effect.  The master put me in traction on my back and fed a line of dialysis tubing directly into an open wound in my armpit.  For all his presumed practice in this matter, he wasn't a very good surgeon.  Blood sprayed everywhere.  I was too doped up to really care, just as long as most of the transfusion found its way into my veins, I was...happy?  Never mind contamination.  Remember what I told you about my immune system?  Comes in really handy during back alley amputations.  Still, he was gonna need help.  He better have called for help.  Oh, please God, somebody help him.

Just then, I heard the card reader signal entry.  I still had enough consciousness to flop my head to the side.  The door flew open.  Out of the hallway darkness, a backpack slid across the floor and came to rest at my master's feet.  Then a burly, wraith-like form stepped into the rendering plant of a room.  Dressed in all black, including a long, sleeveless lab coat, the man stood like an anti-savior.  A wide, drug influenced smile burst forth from under tinted lab goggles...and Mohawk.

"Suup."

F***in Xeno.

Alright, suck it, I'm priming a book.

Smoaggabole?

PATTON'S SAD TAIL- VOL. VI

Sorry to keep bothering you, but I really gotta get this out.  I have a feeling this will be the last time I get the opportunity.  And by the way, I'm not sorry.  You'll be sorry if you don't pay attention and prepare.  Look how cute I am.  I'm your fluffy angel of death.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, my master had just gotten back from disappearing Ghasm.  Plato was about to die, and I had a seriously wild dingle-berry hanging from my ass hair.

Wait.  Hair?  Ass?  Wild?  Oh, shit (pun).  This is all my fault.  Somehow I could feel my master's despondent aura.  I could feel and see Plato's mortal vapor being wisped into oblivion.  My survival instinct told me soon there would be only me and the master, and soon after that, there would be only me.

Where did I get the idea to do what I was about to do?  I didn't have a f***ing clue at the time, but looking back, it was the Collective.  It wouldn't let their idea die with my master and Ghasm's failure, so they planted a little seed in me, and I ran with it.  I ran right into the middle of the f***ing street.

Now, I'd seen cats get run over before.  Little cats rolled over by big ass trucks.  And I'd seen them get up and walk...well...run away.  I know cats like to die alone, so it didn't surprise me I never saw them again.  I didn't want anything that severe.  I wanted to live long enough for my master to save me, and restore hope about saving Plato.

Not a lot of forethought went into my cat shit crazy plan.  That wouldn't come til after.  I still find myself severely lacking.  I started following the master around, crouched and coiled like a fur burglar.  We used to play this game all the time.  I'd hide under the bed or behind a door.  He'd pretend not to see me.  When he got closer, I'd pounce, assassinate his feet, and run away.

Sometimes he'd sneak up on me sneaking up on him.  "Hey!" He'd scream and kick my cover. 

"Hsss!" I'd spit, horrified and run into a wall on the other side of the room.  Scared the f*** out of me.  I loved it.

But I was taking it to a higher echelon this time.  He couldn't go anywhere without me skulking behind.  Every now and then, he'd look down at me and offer a brusk, "Whaddaya doin?"

I'd look back at him with an innocent grin, like, "Oh, hey!  How's it goin?"  Then I'd mind flip him off and go back to stalking.  He got used to it after a while.  Then I struck.

The next time he opened the front door, I bolted.  I speed waddled my fat ass across the parking lot and into a moderately busy side street.  He ran after me, but smoking and lethargy took him down.  I didn't even look when I lumbered into the street.  I just kept thinking, Please be an economy sedan.  Please be a tiny little piece of shit.  It mighta been.  I couldn't tell you.  I was too busy getting run over.

Wham!  Thud-thud-thud!  Skreeee!

Funny thing is, I didn't feel any pain.  I couldn't feel anything at all in my limbs, not even my tail, but you know all about that.  I remember looking down at my body and thinking, Hey, that's not too bad.  At least my back's not bleeding.  Then I thought, Wait, how can I be looking at my own back?  Oh...shit...

That's all for today.  Now limp away, I'm rehabilitating a book.

PATTON'S SAD TAIL- VOL. V

Pet carriers and car rides used to scare the shit out of me.  You don't believe me?  Go check out the stains in my master's car.

 
I remember the first day in my new home, a ground level condo next to a nice little courtyard with a pond and walking path.  I didn't make much of the interior, because there wasn't much to it.  Bare walls, sparse furniture, and bad carpeting greeted me upon my arrival. 

My master placed me in the middle of the living room floor still in my canvas cage.  I was being acclimated like a store bought goldfish.  That's when I found out I had adopted siblings.  Ghasm was already hiding under the shabby sofa, his terrified saucer eyes peeking out from the darkness.  Plato, on the other hand, walked right up to my carrier to greet me.

I probably shouldn't have welcomed him so rudely; hissing and spitting hate and fear, ripping at the carrier with my little baby claws.  He didn't mind though.  He knew the drill; seen it a dozen times before.  That's why he's the king.  He'll always be my master's favorite.  I should have broken his crooked neck as soon as I had the chance.  I'm sorry.  I do consider him like a father.  Kill. 

I don't remember much after that and before the change.  Probably because it was so...f***ing...boring!  Here's a day in the life (yeah, that's why I don't know what the hell a day is):

1. Wake up (What time is it?  Who cares.)
2. Eat.  Eat.  Eat.
3. Drink.  Drink.  Drink.
4. Potty break.
5. Scratch.  Scratch.  Scratch.
6. Lick. Lick.  Li...gag.  (I'm sorry.  I just can't believe I use to do that all...the...time.)
7. Wrestle Plato.  (Hey, he wanted to.)
8. Torment Ghasm.  (In retrospect...bad idea.  Ghasm, if you're reading this, I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry.  Please don't kill me.)
9. Repeat steps 2-6.
10. Nap time.
11. Repeat steps 1-6.
12. Repeat steps 7-12.
13. Repeat steps 1-13 ad infinitum.

Jesus, how can a life so mundane be so confusing?  Before I realized, I was a three year old fatass with fur.  Then, things got weird.   The master started bringing home what I assumed were strays.  Dozens of them, one at a time.  He'd always keep them in the carrier or locked in the bathroom, and they'd never be here for more than a couple days...and they'd never return.

The master started staying out for longer and longer periods of time.  I'm not the best at judging the passage of time, but there's a while, then there's a more while.

Plato's age started really showing right before the odd events.  Wrestling him wasn't even fun anymore.  I'd paw-slap him upside his mangy head and he'd just flop to the ground.  I'd pounce on him and he'd just wheeze, struggle from under me, and hobble under the bed. 

Every now and then, I'd look to Ghasm for a good scrap.  I'd burrow his ass from under the couch and truck him into one of the walls.  But it was usually a one shot deal.  It's amazing where a cat can wedge itself when they're possessed by fear.  Again, if you're reading this, Ghasm, I'm so very sincerely sorry. 

I suddenly felt alone again.  Plato was a geriatric puddle of fur beyond convalescence and Ghasm a neurotic shadow of terror.  The master was out most of the while, and the seemingly endless march of feral rabble wasn't around long enough to offer any companionship.  Suddenly, I was back in the shelter, and it sucked.

Then came the day Ghasm disappeared.  The master's absence corresponding to this event was the longest I could remember.  I think he was gone for like seven or eight months.  Wait, how many times did I repeat my routine.  Oh yeah, days, right?  A couple of days.  Shut up.  Let's see how well you tell time after you've spent most your life in a crappy apartment.

When the master finally returned, his face bore a look I'd never seen before; that of deep loss and regret.  His clothes were tattered and bloody, and the top of his skull brandished a set of long deep wounds.  He saw me sitting on my cat tower and looked at me as if begging forgiveness.  Then he went into the bedroom and out of sight.

I flopped my fat ass off the tower and followed him.  As I entered the bedroom, I saw him kneeling and bowing to look under the bed.  I rubbed my face along his thigh as a sign of acceptance and understanding, though I didn't know what the hell was going.  He simply reached a hand back and pushed me away.  Dick.

"I'm sorry." I remember him saying to Plato.  "It didn't work.  I couldn't do it.  I'm gonna have to take you in.  I can't see you like this."

Whoa, wait a minute.  You mean...can somebody please tell me what this means?  My master stood up and looked at me with what I now remember being comatose disappointment, like soon I'd be all he had left.  What an asshole.  He then walked somberly into the bathroom and ran a bath.  The lights went dead and the door closed.  Ghasm never returned.

Hey, Ghasm.  I know you're out there somewhere.  I can feel your hate within me. 

I'm closer than you think, and you're all gonna die.

Now leave me alone, I'm devouring a book.

PATTON'S SAD TAIL- VOL. IV

Alright, I'm all wedged in again, looking like mayonnaise squirting out of a crushed sandwich.  Let's get these magical mechanical fingers flying!  No, wait.

Now I'm ready.  All the sudden, the memories are erupting within.  I don't know if I like it at all; this sapient recall.  God damn, I used to lick my ass a lot!  That's alright, my immune system is pristine.  It'll definitely come in handy if I go where I think we're going.  They're not gonna pull any of that War of the Worlds shit on me!

Never mind.  That's way over there (pointing ahead).  What I need to talk about is all the way back there (pointing behind as much as my feline joints will allow).

I was born stud of the litter in an overkill shelter on the outskirts of Shitsville.  They new I was special.  Premium pussy.  The 'caretakers' (yeah, they'll take care of you alright) gently placed me in a tall glass chamber complete with towers and toys and every treat you could imagine.  I was the end cap show kitty.  I couldn't fetch a ball (yet), but I could fetch a profit.

I was actually kind of a sweetheart back then.  Who isn't when they're six weeks old?  Nobody cared how much dirty white fur I'd shed or how fat and annoying I'd become.  All they saw was the little white ball of fur playing with a catnip infused boner (hey, it looked like a boner to me).  The bidding war was on.  Then the idiots started rolling in.  Adios, sweet fluff ball.

I don't know how many crusty old ladies and weird young sociopaths stopped by to tap on my window.  Oh, hey, don't worry about me.  I'M JUST TRYING TO SLEEP HERE!  Even back then, I decided; if you tapped on my window, you suck, go to hell, you get the feral cat with the pussy (puss-filled, gaw) eye.

So, if one of the window tappers ever asked to see me, I'd freak out.  Waiting until I was in their overbearing arms, I'd release my bladder and bowels, and dig my little kitty claws as far as could into their chest.  I didn't care if it was an eight year old girl with pigtails and missing teeth.  If you tapped on my window, I covered you in my wrath.

Finally, this...I don't know how to describe him...he was just a pretty f***ing average looking man with a beard, glasses, and shabby clothes.  His head was shaved in a futile attempt to hid his receding hairline, and his clothes were loose in an even more futiler (shut up) attempt to hide his expanding waistline.  I was pretending to sleep at the time; my eyes open just enough to enjoy the parade of morons.

He leaned up to the glass and smiled.  I could tell, not right away, but looking back several years later, he found me especially special, like I could instantly fill a void or...right a wrong.  Then he held his forefinger up to the window.  Please don't be a tapper.  You actually look kind of normal.  Please don't tap.  Before he tapped, he must have noticed the subtle annoyed shift in my demeanor and holstered his finger.

You're the one, I thought to myself.  I'll do everything in my power not to piss and shit all over you when you pick me up.  Looking back, he would have taken me anyway.  He was that desperate. 

Then he left, and the processional of ignorant assholes ensued.  One old hag had a particularly eager, grey toothed grin of determination on her pruned face.  She looked like she had money, too.  That other guy looked poor as shit.  That's it, I lamented, I'm going home with granny.

After what seemed five or six years, one of the nurse, vet, executioners opened the door to my display case and scooped me up.  I instantly squeezed my innards.  Damn it, all empty!  She toted me down the back office hallway to a waiting room and slowly opened the door.  My entire future flashed behind my vertically-pupilled eyes.  This was it.  Mr. Nice Guy or Cruella?

And there he sat, his eyes glassy with either the joy of my arrival or the regret of being penniless.  he stood up and carefully brought me into his arms.  It was joy.  His bristly dimpled smile verified it.

"Thank you." I now remember him saying to the calico scrubbed warden.  Then he looked at me like a proud father, and repeated the line.  "Thank you."

The rest is history.  Of course it is, dumbass.  If it's in the past it's history, doesn't mean my sad tail is over.  We're just getting to the good part...tomorrow night.  To-mor-row night!  But tonight I'm gonna ____ ___!

Now go spay and neuter your pet, I'm adopting a book.

There's your Happy Easter, stupid bunny!

PATTON'S SAD TAIL- VOL. III

Hopefully you realize by now...this is serious.  You know how hard it is to type on this thing?  Laptops are definitely not designed for quadrupeds.  I gotta like set it on the floor by the bed.  Then I gotta wedge myself between the mattress and box spring and pop out over it like and a zit with arms.  Shut up.  You're stupid.  I will kill you...

 You gotta give me a little credit here.  I got a decent grasp of human language and my keyboard skills are really improving.  My hands are a little bigger than they used to be, but they're still pretty f***in small.  The extra thumbs really help. Thanks for that, at least.  I will still kill you...

I'm sure you're not coming around here to catch up on my life skills, so here's the lumpy litter.

Sorry I'm squatting and pinching out this backstory right in the meat of the real action, but some of you might be lost, some of you might benefit from a little explanation, and some of you are just too f***ing stupid to put the pieces together.  I like linear stories with small words so for my brain don't have to think none!  STFU!

The more I adjust to the change, the more the strands of memories coalesce into events.  I do remember waking up, and I remember some of the shit that led up to the operation.  I'm a little resentful about being a test run for the real deal.  (Screw you, Plato.  Father figure my ass.  I should have smothered you while I had the chance.  But really, I love you, you dirty old rat pussy.)  At least I didn't get it as bad as Ghasm (AKA Sam.  AKA Luci.  AKA who the f*** cares.).  Her procedure was stepped on mung compared to mine.  I hope she's doing alright...and I hope I never have the misfortune of running into her in a dark alley.  She will kill me...

So I recall waking up on my stomach in traction, a straw for a cat-theter and a Walgreens cat-lostomy bag.  You will love these plays on words!  I am in charge!  I'm sorry.  Please keep reading.  Purr.  Purr.  Hiss!

I couldn't move a GD muscle, but I knew right away I was different.  My mind perceived with higher awareness.  I didn't struggle.  I let my hands heal and tested their functionality.  The more I moved them, the more my mind expanded.  I know now, more than I inherently should, my almost instantaneously evolved intelligence is the direct result of the hands...the thumbs...the Tactical Opposing Opposable Thumbs...the TOOTs.  Snicker.  Sneer.  This is serious.  What took tens of thousands of years to evolve in humans happened to me in a matter of days.  Indeed, it's still happening.  Quantum evolution.  Nuclear punctuated equilibrium in process.  Wait til you meet Plato.  He's a genius even by human standards.  Stupid humans.

But I think my life before the change is even more interesting.  I'm a MF miracle.  My master will whole-black-hartedly agree.  So...  I'm tired.  Goodnight.  (Making biscuits.  Circling my blanket.  Purring.  Asleeping.)

Turn out the lights, I'm dreaming about a book.

Ha.  Dumbass.

PATTON'S SAD TAIL- VOL. II

I don't know why he's having me do this.  His voice is fine, much better than mine.  I still haven't found mine.  I've only been sapient for a few months.  I'm a fully matured feline with a big human baby brain.  Mostly, I just want to sit in the window sun and stare at squirrels.  Other than that, I want to eat, and excrete, and kill...kill...kill.  But now I have memories and presence.  Perhaps foresight will come later.  Now I'm locked in the ageless battle between instinct and judgement.

But you know what really bothers me?  This is a public forum, right?  I swear...I swear a lot.  You guys are gonna have to get the PG-13...not even that...the PG version of me.  Why do I cuss so much?  It's my foster dad.  He's got a mouth like a human man.  Sorry, I don't have a lot of experience to pull from.  Shut the f*** up.

Speaking of experience.  I know I've been alive for a few years, but almost everything before the change seems like linear strips of residual instinct.  That's how I acted, out of animalistic habit, and those habits are still fully ingrained in my behavioral profile.  Most of my memories consist of patterns, not actual events.

I can explain what happened, but not how.  Perhaps when Plato comes around, he'll enlighten you.  He's the smart one.  Crooked, old, matted, wise pussy.  At least he was the last time I saw him.  He sounds healthier now...in my mind.  We were all just beta tests for him.  Sam, me, and the others just test runs for our master's grand plan; to save Plato's life.  Too bad for the master, his plans had some pretty f...messed up unintended consequences.

As soon as I woke up, I knew I was different.  Not just physically; the change...changed me.  My very nature had been thrust into a cycle of quantum evolution.  "Wait.", you say, "How can you know all this?"  I've since joined minds with the master; cut a slit down the middle of his tongue with my steel claws and commingled my fluid essence with his.  "How did you know to do that?"  Instinct and judgement.  My hormones are f***ing magical!  "But h..."  Shut the f*** up.

Questions won't give you answers, they will give you problems.  I'm the problem.  I will kill you.  The first chance I get.  I will rip your throat out and eat your eyes.  Look it up, that's what we do.

I'm sorry.  Damn it!  I've got a lot on my mind.  Primarily, other minds.  I'm still adjusting to being telepathic and tele-morpho-hormonal.  Not to mention our little experiment may have just opened a portal that will most assuredly lead to the decimation of the entire planet.  What did I tell you?  Don't ask; listen...or I'll rip your f***ing ears off.  Sorry.  Sorry.  Somebody give me a paralyzed mouse to play with!

Now get out!  I'm sharpening my claws on a book.

PATTON'S SAD TAIL

The vibration of the road is hypnotic.  Ashleigh rips the Hellcat over the shoulder grooves on purpose.  (excerpt deleted) There's no noise in the cabin other than the mellow drone of electronica.  I'm resting comfortably in the back seat, sitting on whatever you call that middle part.  I look at my hands.  The blood on my mangled fur has dried and flakes with every movement.  Still, most of it's stuck in a mat.

I poke around the inside of my mouth with a bristled tongue.  There it is; the rotting wound where my fang used to live.  I'll get it back.

I close my eyes, rest my bloody chin on my crossed arms, and assess our current situation.  My master sits next to me, his body throbbing with cellular regeneration.  He's a mess.  He's in his own mess.  Like I said, Ashleigh's piloting the 800 hp comet through the southwestern mountains, taking us somewhere still only she knows.  That's alright, I'd let her drag me anywhere.

Xeno's in the front passenger seat hard at work.  He's got a hiking lamp strapped around his mohawked head, but I can't see what he's doing with his hands.  Cellophane crinkles and powder pours as he experiments.  He's still trying to get rid of me, shut me out.  I've got a cure for that.  I look at my steel claws and flex.  They glimmer under the passing freeway lights.  I think Xeno caught me brandishing them out of the corner of his eye.  Good.  Best...be...ware...

I'm not bothered by the sexy, pyrotechnic alien sitting on my other side in the back seat, or the cage in the trunk.  You know, the cage with the drunk extraterrestrial slug infested severed cop head wrapped in aluminum foil.  Yeah, that one.  No, none of these things really concern me that much.  What really blows my tiny little mind is how I can have any of these thoughts in the first place.  After all, I'm just a fat, lazy cat...  Wipe that look off your face or I'll claw it off for you.

Now change my litter, I'm scratching out a book.  Ooh, a laser!

Also, check this out!

https://kirkehammond.com/2017/01/24/feel-my-breadths/

DISCOVERY CHANNELS

Hopefully you know by now that the Bad Ass Sci Fi blog is my laboratory, my think tank, where I experiment on all things Bad Ass in the realms of Halteres and Opposable.  I will need to reorganatize this site and maybe build a new one, but the domain will remain!  If you need more general malarkey about writing and life, go to

www.kirkehammond.com

Oh, you already got that?  Sor-ry!

So I was thinking about the whole discovery channel thing.  Halteres and Opposable are inexorable companion pieces.  They forever exist together in the Bad Ass Sci Fi universe.  I consider them perpendicular universes, connected by channels.  These channels are opened through ideas, Sparks, discovery.  The tie in is complicated and teetering on forced being pulled down by cliche.  But there exists something more profound.  Something original.  Something beautiful.  Something Bad Ass!  I need to feel their connection.  I need to make it real.  I get the feeling it may be my legacy, whether I succeed or fail in its realization.

So in the immediate future, now that I'm riding a wave of manic creativity, I will plaster my digital canvas with light, shape, and perspective, until something tangible emerges.  Join me!

And just 'cause I'm feeling frisky, here's one of my discovery channels.  Such a sad tail he bears.



Now bask, and breath, and leave, I'm channeling a book.

ENTER THE KAVGAS

The Kavgas is an ancient fighting platform towering amidst the high canyon walls of Octor Sulcus.  It is one of the many metaphorical spires of judgement strewn throughout the realms of Halteres and Opposable; the launching platform upon which Nyk achieves not only self awareness, but the awareness that something else is aware...of him.  Basically, the Kavgas is one of many channels of discovery that connect Halteres and Opposable.  Yes, it's a discovery channel.

Raise curtain.  Act One.  Dux has challenged Nyk to combat on the Kavgas.  One rule; you fly, you die.  But here, we deal not with a simple snapping of the mortal coil, but a decimation of one's legacy.  How Nyk is perceived. remembered, and honored all rest on the outcome of this bout.

Just as combat ensues, however, something invades Nyk's mind; awareness, ubiquitous awareness.  Suddenly, the bludgeoning realization of purpose alternates blows with Dux.  Suddenly, his place among the Haltierre means nothing, his place on Halteres usurps it, and his place in the universe conquers them all.

You have just experienced what we call a brain dump.  These are ideas, and I have given them life.  The I has spoken.  I have seen the Spark, used the Spear, set in the Spike, and ascended the Spire.

Thank you.  You should also check out

www.kirkehammond.com

for more general thoughts.

Now please excuse yourself, I'm Spearing the Sparks of a book.

TWIDDLING MY OPPOSABLE THUMBS

Hmmm, I've never typed the word twiddling.  Odd little term. 

Anywhey, shut up.  Has it really been two months since my last post?  I've been busy.  No really...reeeley biiizzzy.

So, it's 2017, the year Bad Ass Sci Fi explodes!  My universe is expanding as fast as...the universe.

Check it out...

I just flung my 'professional' website/blog/email into the ethersphere (thanks for the Spark, RJT/Xeno).  Seriously, check it out.

kirkehammond.com

plus

kirkehammond@gmail.com

Trust me, it's...there.

You'll have to repeatedly forgive my reemphasized redundancies.  To explain.

Bad Ass Sci Fi is my fun site!
kirkehammond is my serious site, but it's also bad ass!

Now bugger off.  I'm writing a book!  Weee!