I always believe those in charge when they tell me things. Don't you?
The Strange Nuclear Prophecy of Kittens
The kitten finally died at 3:00 am, and Terry wept as she wrapped the small body in plastic and consigned it to the freezer in the basement. She had known that it would more than likely die, but she had nonetheless labored to keep the poor pathetic thing alive.
She had found it in the morning. She had awakened not long after Jack had left for his ten hours at the plant. Her first stop of the day had of course been a pit stop, then she had meandered down the driveway to the mailbox to pick up the morning paper. On her way back to the house she had seen Clara the cat stalking across the lawn, tail twitching in anticipation as she headed for the bowl that Terry kept for her on the front porch. Clara had looked decidedly thinner than usual, and Terry realized that she must have finally delivered her kittens.
Arriving at the house, Terry had found the trap in the far corner of the porch, right where she had carefully set it the night before. It sat tilted onto one side, sprung and of course completely innocent of occupation, the dish of food with which she had baited it upside-down and empty. Clara had appeared on their porch three weeks ago, looking very bedraggled and more than slightly pregnant. Jack, always soft hearted, had run to town for a bag of cat food, and Clara had been hanging around ever since. Terry had rented the trap from Valley Humane two days before, hoping to catch Clara before she delivered. Terry hated the thought of the kittens growing up to be strays, and both she and Jack had taken a liking to Clara. They’d been talking about getting a cat when Clara had appeared. Almost, Terry thought, like a little gift from God.
In disgust, she retrieved the empty food bowl from the trap. She stared balefully at the trap for a long moment, then turned it on end and leaned it against the porch railing with a muttered, "Foolproof my foot!" She fished a small bag of cat food from the bin on the porch and re-filled the bowl. She set the bowl down, casting the foolproof but not Claraproof trap a final resigned glance.
"Can’t catch you now, Sweetie," she said to Clara, who sat waiting a safe distance away, her beautiful green eyes following Terry’s every move. "Don’t want your babies to starve without you."
Terry replaced the bag of food in the bin and closed it firmly. As she walked back to the front door, Clara rushed to the bowl, settling down to eat her breakfast. Terry saluted the cat, then opened the door. The kittens must be in the tool shed. She’d look for them later, she decided, and leave a box and some old towels for Clara to bed down with them in. As Terry was about to cross the threshold, a slight movement at the other corner of the large, old-fashioned porch attracted her attention.
Terry let the door close and crossed to the corner opposite the happily munching Clara, awkwardly bending over for a closer look. Face down on the bare floor boards, a tiny white shape struggled feebly. With a start, Terry realized that the minuscule creature was a newborn kitten.
For a moment she was nonplused. She thought she remembered being told that you shouldn’t touch a baby animal, that if you do its mother will reject it and it will die. Looking around, she saw no other kittens. From the size Clara had been this morning, there was no way in the world that this tiny thing had been her only offspring. Furthermore there was no blood or any kind of bedding where this kitten was lying, and it was way too young and weak to have crawled up on the porch by itself. Clara must have put it here and kept the others wherever her nest was. For some reason Clara had rejected this one kitten.
Awkwardly, Terry stretched down and picked the tiny thing up. Turning it over in her hand, her first look at the kitten’s face caused her to gasp in shock and revulsion. The kitten was horribly deformed.
Where Clara had two very normal emerald eyes, one on either side of her rather pert black nose, her kitten had only one single huge black eye, located in the center of its face. As far as Terry could see, the kitten had no nose or nostrils, only a smooth bump below its single staring eye. It seemed to be breathing with some effort, mouth open, tiny chest rising and falling.
Slowly Terry raised her horrified gaze from the small thing in her hand, her eyes drawn almost involuntarily to the three cooling towers, slightly hazy and shimmering in the late morning sunshine. The Springfield Valley Power Company’s main plant was less than five miles from her house, dominating the skyline above the valley where the small town of Springfield lay spread out at the feet of the immense towers. Almost like a sacrifice, she thought, not for the first time.
Visibly and invisibly, the nuclear plant defined the valley. Everybody in town worked there, or had a family member who worked there. Springfield Power had repeatedly assured the townspeople that the plant was safe, in meetings held when the plant was first proposed and in its ubiquitous newsletters since the plant had come on-line two years ago. Roy Brannigan, Springfield Valley mayor and the richest man in town, waxed eloquent on the subject of plant safeguards whenever questioned by any of his constituents. And now here was this kitten, born almost in the shadow cast by the tall towers. Great.
Terry took the kitten inside and made a bed for it in an old cardboard carton, wrapping a heating pad in a towel to place in the box and laying the kitten gently upon the towel. She found the can of kitten milk substitute and the bottle that Jack had bought with his usual "I’m covering all possibilities" attitude after they had realized Clara was going to have kittens. After the kitten showed no ability to suckle from the bottle, she began feeding it with an eye dropper, just a small amount every hour. The instructions on the milk substitute stated rather emphatically that overfeeding a kitten was something to be avoided.
Despite her best efforts, the kitten grew steadily weaker throughout the afternoon and evening. Jack called at six to tell her that he was stuck doing a double, covering for a co-worker who had called in sick at the Plant. After less than a minute of conversation - with his usual uncanny perception - he said that he thought she sounded a little upset and asked if he should he come home early anyway. Terry told him not to worry, everything was fine. She was upset because Clara had delivered her kittens in the woodshed, that was all. Stay at work, we can sure use the extra ten hours of double time. Jack had laughed and agreed, and hung up after extracting a promise to call him if she needed to.
Terry went to bed at 10:00 pm, setting her alarm for 11:00, then for 12:00, then for 1:00. When she woke at 3:00 and checked the kitten, the little creature was cold and stiff. That was when she began to cry. After carefully wrapping the tiny body and consigning it to the freezer, she went out onto the porch. In the cold darkness she sat on the big swing, huddled in a blanket and gazing through her tears at the lights of the plant so close to her home.
She sat there for a long time, her mood a strange mixture of panic and resignation. She sat and she rocked, the tears still coming, thinking of pretty Clara and the little kitten with the single monstrous staring eye. As she rocked, she gazed at the plant, her hands absently stroking her own gravid belly.