Hot Lava

Almost every child at some point has played a game with many names, interchangeable even within the same household, in which they pretend the floor is made of lava and they must therefore avoid stepping on it at all costs. Cats play this game, too, but take it much more seriously, for cats not only have nine lives and an unquenchable curiosity, but they also have imaginations so potent that while wrapped in the throws of a fancy, their thoughts may as well be real for them. Hot lava, whether made of molten rock or a thick shag carpet, burns. This is why your cat prefers to sit on chairs or the keyboard of your computer, why he leaps to the top shelf, climbs your curtains, or sinks his claws into the couch when you try to move him. The floor burns, and he wants nothing to do with it.

Of course, the burn is entirely imaginary, and thus can be dispelled with the greatest of ease. Cats are curious creatures, so one need simply change their minds about what the world is. A laser pointer will make him forget about the wood tiled lava and become instead, the brave cat scientist out to save the world from tiny red devils, and a spray of water will make him imagine a hurricane and he will seek shelter in the caves under the table or behind the entertainment center.

- Originally mailed to L. Bourlet from Biloxi, Mississippi

B-Boy Cat

All the ladies love a bad boy, and for cats, it's no exception. Coleridge T. Whiskers lived by his own rules, and beneath his fur had a belly tattoo that read ALLEY LIFE and across his back, YOLNT. When he was supposed to be studying, he would throw his notebooks on the floor and practice his sweet b-boy backspins instead. In fact, there was no contest he wouldn't attempt to settle in a dance off: who took a sweet feline home, who rode shotgun, who got the last hit of catnip.

At school, the teachers would get on to him after breaking into a butterfly-windmill-backflip into a headspin in the middle of a lecture. “Mister Whiskers,” they would stay, “behave this instant!”

“You must have me confused,” he would say. “Mister Whiskers is my father's name. You can call me Coolcat.”

The teachers would roll their eyes, but the girls would swoon. “You're heading down a bad path, Mister Whiskers,” they would say, but he wouldn't listen. They were talking to his dad.

He did end up poorly. Too many fights, too much attitude and he got kicked out of the house, just another homeless alley cat begging for scraps and digging in dumpsters. Sometimes, he and the other strays would descend on the same can only to find one fish bone to nibble on. Coolcat wasn't worried though. He had a dance move for just such occasions.

- Originally mailed to M. Wilkes of Ridgeland, Mississippi

Gossip Cat

They spoke of a mysterious black cat, a ghostly being that lurked in high places like cabinets and closets and the tops of bookshelves and dressers. Out of the corner of their eye, they would see his tail swishing, and turn to see the silent creature staring them down with eyes that pierced the soul. “What did it mean?” they wondered. Some said it foretold death because several people lost loved ones shortly after seeing the cat. Some said it signaled financial ruin because its appearance coincided with the loss of a house or job. Still others said he appeared the day before they met their future spouse. Wild rumors circulated about the cat and more and more often the cat would be seen. The town was one large pulsing raw nerve as everyone shared stories about what happened after the cat appeared. The truth is, the phantom feline's appearance foretold nothing at all. They had been so focused on what sorts of things transpired after the cat appeared that they began to project their own assumptions about the cat on the chaos, forcing a pattern where there was none based on their own experiences. If they had looked at the issue from the opposite perspective and asked what had happened before the cat arrived, they would have realized the cat was no premonition, but a connoisseur of stories and gossip.

- Originally mailed to H. Ainsworth from Gulfport, Mississippi

Cat Happy Place

Buttons did not care to be held one little bit. As a kitten, his mother told him his best course of action when the humans picked him up was to go to his happy place. Buttons tried, but he quickly learned that though his instincts were to struggle, to bite and claw and scratch and squirm, the humans would not put him down. How was he ever to get to his happy place?

“Silly buttons,” his mother would say. “Your happy place isn't a real place, but a state of mind.”

At three he learned that his mother was wrong. His happy place wasn't a state of mind at all, but a real place in a parallel world. A brown place. Brown like the dirt he loved to play in, brown like the rug the humans wouldn't let him pee on, brown like his favorite kibble.

From then on, when the humans picked him up, he would stare into the distance and let the Brown Place wash over him and take him away, and would only return when he felt quite certain they had given up searching for him and had opened a nice comfy book for him to sit on.

- Originally mailed to A. Navoy in Jackson, Mississippi

Bartleby, Cattorney

Bartleby Black, Cattourney at Law (his marketer's idea, not his) took all proceedings with the solemnity of a church. It gave him no pleasure to conduct business in conditions such as these, surrounded by pop culture and other common geekery, but he needed to see the alleged forged issue of Detective Comics #27 for himself before he agreed to file suit. “My only condition,” he said, “is that you must handle the comic book yourself. I will not have any accusations that I have somehow tampered with the pages.”

“Besides,” he said. “I have no thumbs.”

- Originally mailed to M. Krell in Horn Lake, Mississippi

Fake Cat

The creature did its best to impersonate a cat. Its fur was a perfectly thick glossy black and its ears had the proper points. It pretended to enjoy activities like batting at things and snuggling with carpeted pillars. Its disguise wasn't perfect, though. It had no tail, its eyes lacked the proper slits, and it misunderstood that cats claw at things for the sake of clawing, and not to prepare a thing for eating. Still its disguise was good enough to keep him undetected on the planet for many months, in which time he learned that though mankind seemed eager to serve him, any being which could not tell the difference between a real cat and a lousy fake would make for terrible slaves.

- Originally mailed to S. Gill of Ocean Springs, Mississippi