Lock
Locked in. Or out. Should have made them leave the key.
575 words
There was a gate behind the shed that was left because the people who used to own the house were friends with the surveyor. It was tricky to get there, you had to twist your body through a few bushes and the gate itself was fairly narrow.
All of the other gates, all up and down the street, had been removed, and the access to the woods was denied. But the surveyor found that the fence on this property at 111 Rolondo Drive was inside their own land, and no outer fence. But the couple that lived there was long dead, they were at the Lakeside cemetery which was just a mile's walk away, not through the gate, but along the straight cement of the bike path which ringed the lake. If you turn left past the public beach the cemetery is right there.
One of them was cremated and one had chosen to be dissolved at the time this was the new green way to die. The couple had seven cats, four of them indoor Siamese cats, three were feral cats, and the man had made little outdoor cat condos. Even before he died, these three large, monster-like orange cats that danced among the green of the wild backyard had had many kittens.
But now, seventy-five years later, there were hundreds of cats, that squeezed themselves under the porch and lived in the shed. They were all, without exception, bright orange and huge. It had been many many years since anyone fed them. There was a little girl, named Maya, who used to play alone during the day in the old backyard, and sometimes she remembered to set out food for the cats, extras from the docile indoor cats she had. She had since grown up and moved away.
It wasn’t food that kept the cats coming back every night to sleep in overnight in the overgrown backyard. It was not the remnants of the shelter, that the decrepit cat condos, the shed, the space under the porch, or even the house. The house was still standing but part of the roof had caved in under the weight of the strawberries that were grown on the roof. It wasn’t the ancestral memory of love.
The lock that grounded them to the backyard yard was the dark furry force that came in through that long-forgotten gate, a spirit that buried in the woods of the backyard long before the cemetery existed. This spirit called to the cats in the language of a long-forgotten song. A song that sends vibrations through the earth just as whale songs send vibrations through water.
The cats heard the song and were drawn to it, but were also afraid. The house and yard offered the opportunity to be near the calls of the looney cat monster at night, but also to feel that they were not directly underneath the seductive meows from the beyond. The gate, which had rusted forever open at about cat width, offered the opportunity for the cats to explore the woods during the day, joyously murder voles, and have other ordinary cat adventures. This is when the dark furry monster was silent. During the day the crazed cat spirit was silent and listening. It was only at night, that he took to his cat drumming circle of endless cries. The meows varied from plaintive to furious and told the story of all the orange clan, was held the memory of every bug that was caught, every fish that was eaten, every dog fight, and every nap in the sun.
— 7Roses
Locked in. Or out. Should have made them leave the key.
575 words
There was a gate behind the shed that was left because the people who used to own the house were friends with the surveyor. It was tricky to get there, you had to twist your body through a few bushes and the gate itself was fairly narrow.
All of the other gates, all up and down the street, had been removed, and the access to the woods was denied. But the surveyor found that the fence on this property at 111 Rolondo Drive was inside their own land, and no outer fence. But the couple that lived there was long dead, they were at the Lakeside cemetery which was just a mile's walk away, not through the gate, but along the straight cement of the bike path which ringed the lake. If you turn left past the public beach the cemetery is right there.
One of them was cremated and one had chosen to be dissolved at the time this was the new green way to die. The couple had seven cats, four of them indoor Siamese cats, three were feral cats, and the man had made little outdoor cat condos. Even before he died, these three large, monster-like orange cats that danced among the green of the wild backyard had had many kittens.
But now, seventy-five years later, there were hundreds of cats, that squeezed themselves under the porch and lived in the shed. They were all, without exception, bright orange and huge. It had been many many years since anyone fed them. There was a little girl, named Maya, who used to play alone during the day in the old backyard, and sometimes she remembered to set out food for the cats, extras from the docile indoor cats she had. She had since grown up and moved away.
It wasn’t food that kept the cats coming back every night to sleep in overnight in the overgrown backyard. It was not the remnants of the shelter, that the decrepit cat condos, the shed, the space under the porch, or even the house. The house was still standing but part of the roof had caved in under the weight of the strawberries that were grown on the roof. It wasn’t the ancestral memory of love.
The lock that grounded them to the backyard yard was the dark furry force that came in through that long-forgotten gate, a spirit that buried in the woods of the backyard long before the cemetery existed. This spirit called to the cats in the language of a long-forgotten song. A song that sends vibrations through the earth just as whale songs send vibrations through water.
The cats heard the song and were drawn to it, but were also afraid. The house and yard offered the opportunity to be near the calls of the looney cat monster at night, but also to feel that they were not directly underneath the seductive meows from the beyond. The gate, which had rusted forever open at about cat width, offered the opportunity for the cats to explore the woods during the day, joyously murder voles, and have other ordinary cat adventures. This is when the dark furry monster was silent. During the day the crazed cat spirit was silent and listening. It was only at night, that he took to his cat drumming circle of endless cries. The meows varied from plaintive to furious and told the story of all the orange clan, was held the memory of every bug that was caught, every fish that was eaten, every dog fight, and every nap in the sun.
— 7Roses
Sweet and strange world of cats! Very creative response to the prompt! Thank you! The descriptions of lost, once-domestic landscapes was compelling. ---Macoff
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