Euthenasia

*** Note: This story does not quite adhere to the prompt. It is a story about a people shelter, run by a cat. ***

SETTING:

A plasma wave hit planet earth a few years ago, making all cats more conscious than the average human. Something had happened to the people, there, too. The gangstalkers, humans who were evil, had lost whatever ability they had to work their brain (not that they were using what they had, otherwise they wouldn't have been stalkers). The humans who were on the path to enlightenment, had become completely enlightened.

Queen rushed through the cat-flap so slow that the flap hit her on the head on the way in. Standing on her hind legs, she shoved her paws upwards, and finished making her way through the door.

Louise looked up from her desk near the door, as she was typing on the laptop. “You’re late. I’ve got a huge shipment of Tards coming in today. We don’t have any room for them. I don’t really want these Tards here, but there is nothing that can be done. These Tards are causing huge problems for the locals, scrambling about on their hands and knees, chasing each other, putting their noses in each-others butts, and biting each other.”

Queen strolled up to Louise, leaping onto her lap, and then leapt onto her cushion next to Louise’s monitor. Above the cushion was a tiny helmet. Louise lowered the helmet onto Queen. “Really, Louise. Could you wait until I’ve had a milk before hitting me with all this?” A female computerised voice emitted itself from a tiny speaker above the helmet.

Louise smiled at Queen. “A milk, is it? Any kind in particular? On the rocks? Warm? Cold? Lactose free? Or do you want to live dangerously and risk a hairball?”

Queen glared at Louise. “I suppose you’ll make me clean the hairball up again?”

Louise got up and walked towards the refrigerator, pulling out specially made cat milk. She went to the cupboards, and poured the milk into a fine bone china cup. Taking it back to her desk, she placed the cup before the cat. “Here you go. Some cold, lactose free, cat milk in your favourite cup.”

Queen dipped her head and began slurping the milk. “Thanks.”

Louise sat back down at the desk. “So, boss. What’s the plan? Where are we going to put these newTards?”

Queen glanced up from her cup, milk weighing down her whiskers. “That’s simple. How long have we had our current Tards?”

Louise frowned. “A month. The last batch came in over from Snake Lake. They were disgusting. I had to clean each of them up. Some of them don’t even know how to use their clothing any longer. Sometimes they just piss through them.”

Queen looked hard at Louise. “What aren’t you telling me about these Tards?”

“Oh, come on. Most of these Tards are the locals who tried to manipulate me into sex or harass me into hurting myself. I hate looking after them. They were a burden to me before enlightenment and they are even more of a burden since the plasma hit.”

Queen nodded her head, dipping her chin in the milk. “Ah. I see. Maybe we could have set up a Tard shelter a little further away from where you were stalked. Where is your compassion?”

Louise grimaced. “I’m enlightened, not Jesus.”

“Anything else about the new Tards coming in?”

Louise shook her head. “Not really. They might come from farther away, but they are part of the Tard group that stalked me. I really wish we could put them down, you know, how they wanted to do that with me.”

“Have you been meditating?”

Louise brought her hands up to the namaste position. “Yes, master.”

Queen jumped from her cushion onto the floor. “Well, let’s do a stocktake of these Tards, then, and see what can be done.”

Louise followed Queen into the back of the shelter, where the once walking, talking and stalking human beings were all locked in tiny cages. There were two or three humans to every cage. Litter trays, unused, were at the back. The humans wore giant nappies, some of them leaking. There were food dishes filled with cereal and milk.

Queen stopped before a cage. “This one. I recognise this one from a picture you were in with. Wasn’t this your old land lady? Hasn’t she been here since we opened?”

Louise stared at her feet. “Yes.”

Queen pressed, “Why hasn’t she been euthanised?”

 “Because, I thought, maybe, if I spent time with her, I could rehabilitate her. I’ve seen it on YouTube, how other cats and enlightened people have been rehabilitating Tards. I thought, well, I just thought.” Louise shrugged.

Queen shook her head. “We don’t have the facilities for this. We really don’t. Look at all these Tards. Their cages are overfull. You haven’t changed their nappies. And what have you been feeding them?”

“We don’t have any funding from the government and because we haven’t been able to place a Tard in a home, we don’t have any money coming in from that. No one wants a Tard.”

“Louise, there is only one thing we can do in this circumstance. It is the humane thing to do. You know what it is. You have to do it. The new Tards deserve a chance to be rehabilitated. And, anyway, I have a penchant for human meat.” Queen bared her fangs at Louise. Louise shuddered.

“You’re right, Queen.” Louise walked to the back of the shelter, withdrawing a huge kit labelled ‘Euthanasia’. She opened the bag, withdrawing a large-prefilled syringe from the top. Walking over to the door where Queen was standing, Louise unlatched the front. Slipping in, she stood before the elderly woman grovelling on her hands and knees. The elderly woman tried to get behind Louise, pushing her nose between Louise’s legs. “Are you serious? I wasn’t interested when you could put two words together and I am not interested now.” Louise reached down and removed the overfull nappy from the woman, plunging the syringe into her maximus gluteus. The woman’s eyes looked up and met Louise’s. Louise shook her head. “This was how it was always going to be. I’m sorry. You refused to hear sound advice. You refused to stop being a bully and the plasma hit your psyche and destroyed what was left of your mind. I hope, I really hope, you get that this was your karma that you had to pay.” The body went limp. Louise withdrew the needle, and after recapping it, placed it in a disposal unit at the back.

Queen licked her paw and dragged it across her head. “You have the rest to do. Then you need to place the bodies in the grinder and clean and sterilise the cages. If you really want to rehabilitate this next group, think about what you’re feeding them and maybe take them for walks. Keeping Tards like this isn’t going to do anything.

Louise nodded her head, grabbing the next needle. “No worries. Maybe, in the future, you could get someone else to help me with this part. It’s awfully hard on me, grinding up all these Tards.”

Queen responded, “If the government pays us our funding for keeping the Tards off the street, there shouldn’t be a problem. Anyway, I have phone calls to make. And remember, this is your karma, to look after, euthanise and grind up the Tards for me. I will see you at the end of shift, when the new group comes in.” Queen struck her tail straight into the air and waltzed from the shelter into the office.