The Battle of 41 Kingsborough Court

The blood-red sun rose slowly over the hill-crested suburbs of the northern stretch of Westbury City, itself actually just south of the huge metropolis of Columbus. The sleepy suburb was lined with identical two-story houses, seemingly stretching on forever, the myriad of colors, within the standard spectrum of tan, grey, and white, saturated the landscape. Each home had a front and backyard and was allowed exactly two hedges, one small garden, and five trees, with one needing to be an oak tree, their majestic, thick trunks, and beautiful, constantly outreaching branches, the very leaves themselves seemed to be stretch and always reach out. The city planner wanted this to be the motto of this suburb: “always be reaching out”  but was outvoted by the board for the most likable: “Westbury City: where style meets comfort!” 

That particular morning was a pivotal moment in all of Westbury City, the morning sun almost shuddering under the weight of its importance to all of creature kind, as the milkman was close to finishing his deliveries on Kingsborough Court, a normally busy street of Westbury City, but this this morning there was a strange stillness surrounding the suburbs. The milkman, listening to the smooth sounds emanating from his radio, made his delivery to 41 Kingsborough Court, was not aware of the devastating battle that would soon happen.

In the perfectly manicured backyard of the home was the regulation-sized garden, measuring exactly two and three-quarters feet by three and one-eighth feet, full of the regulation flowers: one section of daisies, one section of tulips, and one optional section of either berries or simple vegetables. The owners of the home had selected carrots as their optional section, as the man of the home thoroughly enjoyed the sweet taste of fresh-squeezed carrot juice, unaware that the sugar content in the orange delights would later cause him exactly six separate cavities, each, surprisingly, only on the left side of his jaw.

Near the back side of the back yard, lined by the regulation white-picket fence, stood guard a small soldier, big brown eyes scanning the area, ready to alert his fellow soldiers of any movement on the western front. His reddish brown nose twitched at the various smells from the yard, three of his limbs planted firmly on the ground, his fourth raised a bit, anxiously trembling. His bushy brown and white tail flowing softly in the breeze, on his chest the light brown fur, tinged with a bit of orange, was rising and falling fast with his heartbeat. He stared out at the western front, noticing the enemy ahead.

They rested comfortably on the back cement patio, long and slender speckled tails twitching slightly, their breathing shallow and comfortable, relaxed and at ease. But the soldier knew that any moment they could turn and strike. The time was now, the moment perfect, their human owners would still be waking up on this lazy weekend morning. He looked off to the side of the yard and noticed his allies from the ground, their small brown bodies dotted with white, made eye contact with him and nodded.

Another soldier dropped from the fence and came to attention.

“No word from the mining men, sir,” she squeaked to the first soldier,  her commander, who nodded, knowing that the miners below had always struggled to show up when asked.

“We cannot wait for them, we must strike now,” he gravely squeaked in response. “We have the advantage and the soldiers.” His comrade nodded and let out a squeak.

Above them, in the beautiful and overflowing oak tree, three dozen more soldiers came to attention, waiting for their next command. To their left, their smaller ground-based comrades moved up, their numbers half of the tree soldiers, but together they stood a chance.

“On my signal,” the commander squeaked and put his fourth leg on the ground, his tail held straight up, ready to give the final signal. A moment of silence passed through the yard, and all the commander could hear was his own quick breaths. Then, “we go to war!” His tail dropped behind him and he raced forward, darting in a manic zig-zag pattern, as he was trained by his father and how his father’s father trained him.

His second in command squeaked in response and leapt after him, the three dozen tree soldiers charged, deftly and agiley darting from branch to branch, tree to tree, moving closer to the enemy. The ground-based soldiers charged, their small frames taking more time to reach the back patio. Half of the tree-based soldiers jumped from the trees to the back telephone lines that criss-crossed the yard, to attempt to maintain the aerial advantage, while the other half dropped to the fence and then the ground, forming a flank to the right of the patio.

“For freedom from tyranny!” they squeaked in unison.

The three creatures on the patio, unaware of the ensuing squadron of soldiers, lazily bathed in the warm summer sunrise, the recent chill from the darkness ebbing, their night of hunting done, and their simple adventures of knocking items off of tables countertops absolutely tired them out. The middle creature, orange with little stripes of white suddenly noticed that his paw was unclean and furiously made to clean it, licking it and biting ever so slightly. It was then his ears picked up on sounds behind him, which at first he ignored, as his paw needed to be cleaned now. Suddenly, the sounds were closer and, curious at the commotion, rolled over to see the cause.

The soldiers’ small claws were quick and efficient, aimed at the face of the larger creature, and did their damage well. They jumped onto their larger enemies, claws furiously slashing at every bit of exposed flesh, teeth sinking as deep as they could. The larger creature yowled in pain, awaking his two comrades, as the small soldiers attacked them also. The other two large creatures, brother and sister, were speckled grey and black with twinges of gold, their patterns complementing each other nicely. Today, the extra colors of red clashed with their perfect manes.

The ground-based creatures on the left joined the attack, gnawing and clawing furiously but were no match for the sister cat, as she fought off the small soldiers and dealt killing blow after killing blow to the groundlings. She yowled ferociously, her head turned up in triumph when she noticed the creatures from above on the telephone wire, leaping down to them. Her eyes widened and she expertly jumped back as if she weighed nothing. She let the aerial soldiers drop down onto the hard cement, watching as they landed hard, their legs not braced properly for impact, bones crunching slightly, squeaking out in pain. It was then that the sister creature dove forward and struck with claw and tooth, ruthlessly ending the journeys of the small creatures that ker kind had been in constant conflict with, before she was even born.

Her brother was not faring as well, overrun on two sides from the fluffy-tailed invaders and had one of his legs bitten so hard he could not feel it anymore. His sister, having dealt enough damage to the smaller groundlings, rushed to his aid, ignoring their orange leader lashing out at the myriad furry soldiers, one eye badly damaged and the other partially blinded by a stream of crimson liquid. She was worried about her brother, who had always been the weakest of the bunch, the proverbial and literal runt of the litter.

“Sister!” he cried, as the soldiers attacked the back of his head. She dove over him, swiftly batting away the creatures and giving her brother a moment to get to his three working feet. She bit down hard on a larger creature’s head, deriding much pleasure from the squirming body suddenly go limp with a hard crunch as her jaw clenched down hard. With a quick toss of her head, she threw the limp body into the crowd of soldiers who became discouraged from the larger creature’s power, they started to turn and leap away.

The commanding soldier tried to keep the attack going, the largest of the creatures fully blinded by now and moving backwards, one cat limping on three legs, but the smaller, more ferocious cat protecting him. Sound and time seemed to drop out as he glanced around at the rest of his troops: the bodies of fallen soldiers, with the groundlings suffering the most casualties; his second in command was trying to drag a fellow soldier away from the carnage, not noticing that her comrade had been clawed in half, innards trailing behind him. The small soldiers started to retreat to the grass, their surprise attack beginning to fail miserably, as their numbers plummeted down to only a dozen soldiers left.

The larger creatures, noticing this started to advance on them, able to snatch at least a stalemate from the literal claws of defeat, the sister creature baring her fangs, hissing out at the rodents she despised, this is their undoing, she thought to herself.

“Give them no mercy!” she meowed out at her two comrades and they charged the remaining creatures. The commander held his ground, for if he were to perish, it would be in the glory of battle. His feet trembled and he pulled himself together, only to find that it was not his feet that trembled, but the earth itself, becoming more unstable and louder. The large creatures did not seem to notice as, from deep below the surface, fresh dark brown and black dirt pushed up as the mining men climbed through, claws at the ready, their large rectangular teeth gnashing out and catching the larger creatures by surprise, tripping them and snapping at their feet.

The surprise cavalry reinvigorated the small soldiers and they rushed in to continue the fight, all of their gusto into getting rid of these creatures. The battle, now turned in favor of the small rodents, was violent and fast, the brother creature fell quickly to the dismay of the sister, who grabbed her brother by the scruff of his neck and retreated, her blinded comrade quickly following her as they escaped through the side path next to the house. The rodents jumped up in triumph, fully aware that while the war was not over, this battle would go down in the history books. 

The commander gathered his troops and then bent their heads in a moment of silence for their fallen comrades, the wails and cries palpable, as they sang the traditional funeral songs, leading their souls to the hall of Oakhalla, where the trees stretched on for miles, the acorns were plentiful, and fermented crabapples would fill their bellies with their intoxicating meat.

As they were celebrating, a tall woman with a perfectly ironed blue garden dress with a white apron opened the door, a glass of freshly squeezed carrot juice in one had, a small trowel in the other, a bandana expertly tied to hold her hair back and out of her face, her thick black cat-eye sunglasses covering her eyes. She closed the door behind her and inhaled deeply, the smell of the morning relaxing her, until she sniffed again, this time a strange smell, almost like wet rust, intermingled in the olfactory senses in her brain. 

She glanced down and saw the myriad bodies of squirrels and chipmunks strewn about the patio and backyard, some severed in half, others with crushed heads, all mangled and bleeding. The scream started from the deepest region of her diaphragm, the sound so loud, neighborhood dogs chimed in. Her glass of juice dropped out of her hand and smashed on the bloodstained patio, the liquid sloshing around drowning out the glass shattering, the trowel dropping and bouncing, the tip even slicing across the woman’s foot, but she did not even notice.

The rest of the soldiers had fled the backyard, upset that they could not properly bury their comrades, but glad to escape the human’s wrath and screeching. They would live on to see another day, unsure of how their enemies fared but they knew that victory had been achieved, even at the highest cost. Their descendants would sing and chatter on about this important victory, unbeknownst to most, on the quiet and unassuming Kingsborough Court.