nyangoro

Also found a piece of flash fiction I wrote based on a friend’s prompt.

—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-——-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—–

The orange tabby cat dug its claws into the nearest soft enough surface and yowled its displeasure.

—-—-

“/You’re giving up your seat to your cat?/”

The old man stroked the tabby’s head. The cat trembled anxiously, yet was otherwise frozen in a deluge of sights and sounds and smells. “/Yes./”

The young soldier had been warned that not everyone would evacuate willingly, but the old man’s matter-of-factness still flummoxed her. “/Sir, radiation will reach critical levels in just a few hours. You need to leave now./”

The old man shook his head. “/I am an old man. But Nyangoro is young. She deserves a chance to live./”

To the soldier, sending a cat into space seemed like animal cruelty, but she kept that thought to herself.

“/Life isn’t only for the young/,” she told him. “/The Kashiki-dokoro will need the wisdom of its elders./” She wondered if she sounded as ridiculous as she felt.

But for a moment, she thought she won, as the old man did nor said nothing. Then he kissed the cat’s forehead and pressed the terrified creature into her arms.

“/Forgive my selfishness./” In that moment, the soldier understood his fear and the comfortable certainty of death. And she knew she neither had the time nor the words to help him. She could only take the cat.

—-—-

The orange tabby did not care for space, nor was it shy in letting the humans around it know. The young soldier cursed her weakness and the old man’s sentimentality. What kind of life was this for a cat? Cats didn’t like change. Up was supposed to be up and down was supposed to be down; Newton’s law of gravity was, in fact, the Law of Nyangoro.

Someone even wrote that on the door of the medbay with black eyeliner, along with other laws such as “Breakfast is at 7 am without fail” and “The litterbox must always be blessed after cleaning.”

The cat’s dour personality made it surprisingly popular. Instagram didn’t really work without an Internet connection, but the kids could still take pictures with their phones, and pictures of Nyangoro managed to go viral, if somewhat more slowly. Memes were made, of course. Nyangoro eloquently expressed dissatisfaction with everything from cafeteria food to nosy neighbors to the decisions of the Provisional Diet.

Once the soldier saw Nyangoro sitting in a young boy’s lap as an older man showed him the best way to pet the cat, and she was struck by the Buddha-like serenity in its expression. Nyangoro was more than just the station pet or station mascot; the cat did more than just bring the residents together.

Then the child tugged on a mat and Nyangoro jumped and howled in rage so exaggerated, she couldn’t help laughing.