Almost Daily Cat Haiku

I was going to ramblize about being tired and my sore muscles and wanting to go back to bed, but that seems too whiny. Even for me. I mean, I AM tired, and I have many sore muscles, and I do really want to go back to bed. (and I’m probably a bit whiny) But how often am I not all those things?

Maybe the reason I’m sore and tired and whiny is because I’m not actually in bed all night. Maybe after everyone is asleep, a diminutive alien sneaks out of the closet and drags me out of bed with their litt anti-gravity device, held between tiny arms,  and hovers me through an interdimensional portal at the back of my closet. In a flash, I’m transitted billions and billions of miles across space and time. I arrive on a far distant planet, their two suns rising together along a horizon where fields of blue and black grasses merge with the yellow sky.  Hundreds of thousands of tiny bipedal creatures, their eyestalks waving in unison, are chanting rhythmically in incomprehensible syllables. Their tentacle-like arms fluidly reach towards me from every direction. I don’t feel threatened, there is no malice in their song or actions.

One brave critter shambles forward on serpentine legs, both of which end in a  globulous pseudopodial foot that spreads against the ground with each forward step, and then snaps back with a suction cup sound effect as they bring the leg forward again. He.. she?… it (does it matter?) extends their outreached arms, stretching them longer towards me. The three finger-like extensions on each twitches in corkscrew patterns. 

Almost as if I know what is expected, like I’ve done this before, my own arms close the space between us, and my five fingered hands clasp their’s of three. I turn to my left, dragging them in a circle, their spaghetti legs and gecko feet tangle together for a moment as my momentum turns into a spin. They hover before me now as I twirl around, centripetal force pulling at them as our hands grasp one another’s tighter. Their oddly shaped slit of a mouth is upturned at the corners now, a smile, it seems, is easily interpreted in any dimension. Their eye stalks dangle behind them now fluttering in the cyclonic winds we create, like the ends of a scarf. It has ceased its chanting, even as the crowd grows louder, its voice now shrill and bubbly. If had to guess, it was laughing. Giggling even.

My momentum slows, the little alien’s legs drag along the stone ground we occupy for a moment before we slow enough for them to reengage their cephalopodic legs. I release their hands, and they mine, and as I stand for a moment catching my breath, they plod off in an erratic winding path, still “giggling”.

The whole scene makes me smile, I laugh quietly myself. I feel a nudge-like tapping on the side of my leg, looking down I see another one of them. Like their friend previously, their slender wobbling arms reach for me, their mouth already smiling, their  ommatophoric and beady eyes opened wide. Again, I grasp their hands. Again, we begin our dance.

After about a half dozen of them get spun around, and dizzily stagger off, the crowd grows eerily silent. They seem to be watching me still, but their eyes droop down along the sides of their bulbous heads. The smiles all returned to a stoic slit. I try to ask them why they look so sad, knowing my words likely mean nothing to them. But one of them points to spot to my left. I turn, and just behind me sits an orbulating disc of shimmering light. The portal, my doorway home, has returned. I turn back and wave, they emphatically respond in like. And then I step into the fuzzy iridescent haze, and dissappear back into my closet.

The first little dude is still there. It smiles at me, its head tilted inquisitively to one side. I thought it might want a spin-me-round too, but as I reach out to take their hands I see it carries a small tool. A short metallic rod, silver and gleaming in the pale sunrise light coming in the windows of my bedroom. They touch it to my hand and I feel the cold of it for half a second, a buzz across my skin, there and gone again, and I know I’m sleeping now.

I’ll awake soon enough. The morning light, and the cats, will make slumber difficult to say the least. And when I do rise, I will still be tired. And I’ll be sore. And there will be whining.

And maybe I’ll remember why…