Chloe the Sentient Cat

This tarred beach was pretty hot that day, endless, stretching towards infinity, masses of humanity trundling up and down her, north and south, forever and ever, with no apparent end in sight. Hotter still because the sun never set anymore, not really, and the reflection off the ocean was both blinding and burning, those twin senses of eternal annoyance.

Okay, sure, you needed the water, and right, of course, you needed the coolant, but holy hell was it tedious seeing the same endless horizon for miles as the “comebackers” jostled for a place outside the surf zone while the “go-northers” squawked that you could only find the Lord by going “up, up, toward the bright light”. Both sides, naturally, were pretty much sun-brained into a crispy insanity.

Sea shells had ceased to be, ever since the great ionization, so you didn’t worry about cuts so much as you worried about one of the monstrous jelly fish fingers finding purchase between your toes, making your next few miles a limp-a-long fiasco as the older crowd shook their head ruefully at what had become of the young’s generation’s toes.

Chloe the cat was having little to none of this action today. She trailed a group of idiots by a few dozen yards, staying even a few dozen more in front of the next group of imbeciles. Her lithe cat paws kept a natural balance between the hot sand and the ebbing water, and she fashioned herself above all of it, the jellies, the sunburns, and especially the entire “go-norther” ethos. She’d been made a sentient cat a few hundred years ago, back before it became unfashionable to go all “animal kingdom” in society, but she had no real regrets. She had less mass to feed, less brain to ponder the ecological disaster, and more claws to rip things to shreds that displeased her. And oh the tiny little fish! They were all that was left, these small fish, but they swam so politely right into her kitty talons. And maybe that’s what the sunburned heads were missing – lovely tiny fishes to keep them satiated.

A little girl spied Chloe from 50 yards back, but being a cat she spied the little girl before she’d even had a chance to form a thought about scooping Chloe up and plying her with kisses. Little feet pitter pattered on the sand, weaving through tired adult legs, zooming around the “too cool for coolant” teens, until Chloe realized a choice would need to be made. Allow the tiny one a sliver of joy on this hot day? Or bounce away into the surf, where no adult would permit the child to roam, for fear of being branded a “get loster”. There had been decades of those who went for a “swimming stroll” and never came back, they of far less hearty stock than the marchers of either direction, so eventually they’d just outlawed the entire practice so it no longer came down to intent.

“Fine”, she thought, “I’ll let this kid have a pet or two. What’s the harm, after all?” She slowed her brisk pace slightly, curved into the beach a bit to give the child a sense of pursuit and accomplishment, and then felt the two little hands grasp around her small ribcage. “Oooh, what a beautiful cat girl!” the child exclaimed, and Chloe couldn’t really disagree there. Half a millennium ago Chloe had been an insurance adjuster, tethered to a barely living wage and desk while the sea crept closer and closer to the office buildings. Cat life was a dream compared to that, though her cat memory only kept the barest recollection of a time so far back, a time without hairballs, sure … but also without little fish.

“Daddy, can we keep her?” the child asked breathlessly, to which Chloe already knew the answer, regardless of what this daddy fellow thought. No, definitely not. She saw the adult shake his head, barely registering the cat at all, clearly hoping the child would drop the entire matter altogether. “Hmm, what’s this though?” the questioning child asked, seeking affirmation, affection, or at the very least attention for her new cat pal. The father squinted against the sand and sun to take a look.

“That’s a heart locket, dear, people used to wear them to remember loved ones by.”

“Hmmm.” The child paused, furrowing up her little brow. “But why would this cat have a heart locket? Do cats have loved ones to remember?”

The father sighed, wishing he was heading south again. Only three more weeks to go. “I don’t know dear, you’d have to ask her.” The child looked down at the locket and considered opening it up, but a quick look from Chloe’s green eyes told her that wasn’t really her best idea. Sadly, resignedly, she set the cat down and let her go upon her way, the fun over, the mystery never to be solved.

But if she had managed to convince Chloe the sentient cat to reveal the secret of the locket, she would have found something truly astonishing, both to Chloe, herself, and even father. For inside that beautiful golden locket, in text so small you’d need a magnifying class to behold it, was Form 10899B, from an insurance company that no longer existed, a form that used to be sent out to customers in triplicate, embossed, telling them their medical coverage for sun cancer had lapsed entirely, and that no further payments would be made on their behalf. That form, 10899B, was the very thing Chloe the sentient cat had chosen to carry around with her, held secure in a little locket, a talisman of a job well done over the course of so many centuries, as the waterline scraped ever closer, the sun slowly brightening, Chloe bounding off into the surf again in search of more very tiny fish.