Author: Morrow Brady

Without a backstory, the darker patch at the edge of the busy road went unnoticed. It was being faded to oblivion by layers of desert dust and the enraged rush hour traffic.

As my evening walk took me past that patch, near the busy street junction, I looked over at it and thought about the day before, when those cars played their sinister role.

I remembered how I first saw the new-born kitten’s grey fluffy body trembling. Still blind from birth, the tiny kitten’s fragile form self-soothed as it padded silvery sock-like paws against the warmth of a towering concrete kerb. A stumble away, cars roared by with asphalt-shredding tires and horns barking like hounds on the hunt.

I remembered looking up from the kitten and meeting the dead eyes of a Jinna Witch, who promptly returned her gaze to the kitten, letting her emotions fall to her drug-clenched jawbone. The leech skin wall cladding of the pop-up car detailer she leaned against gave off more emotion. A little further on, also watching the fateful event, stood a guardian prince, adorned in long white coveralls. He subtly smiled, satisfied in the singular moment of our silent connection, then returned his dark eyes to a nuisance video in his palm. Their silence weighed heavier than the kitten’s fear.

I looked around for the kitten’s mother. A damned Dam indeed to let her offspring fall into such peril.

My conscience had clawed at my mind’s chalkboard. While it toyed with mercy, it also reminded me of the burden of parenthood and sealed the deal with the risk of catching some feral disease. Walking by, would join me with the Witch and Prince in support of fate and nature.

As my conscious fought on, that’s when I saw the kitten’s mother. A scrambled grey, poised within the dry undergrowth of dusty plastic peri-planter. It watched with robotic dead eyes, as her new-born kitten staggered ever closer toward its vulcanised demise. For a moment, hope burst forth as I mistook her missing front paw as a poised, ready-to-pounce stance. Her fine raked grey fur was torn in places, revealing ruptures where beneath lay fine metallic gears and illuminated silicon ribbons. My mind put the story together quickly and a mental relief valve in my mind hissed open, releasing my caged conscious to prowl once again.

The mother was a free-roaming catbot. Hardened by street survival, she had evaded capture. Her annual kitten had fallen from her torso-forge like a vending machine soda. Still warm, still twitching from the initial power-up and still syncing through subroutine updates. Its life ready to be written in code and claw.

Only the kitten’s mother had opted for a brief existence, assembling a sadistic crowd of three to witness its grisly end.

Liberated of the burden, I continued down the street, shaking off the horrific demise. There would be no bloody death today, only the instantaneous disassembly of a cute toy.

Back to the present, with the memory of the event fading, I once again passed that same point in the road and registered an absence of kitten-sized gears and silicon ribbons.

The Jinna Witch sat cross-legged in the leech skin doorway, with a cute grey cat nestled in her lap. Its fur, bristling with warmth, was free from damage and its two front paws gently kneaded the dark knitted fabric. One paw carried a familiar silvery sock.