9 Lives......A Short Cat Story

9 Lives by Felix Heng

Whoever coined the phrase “ it’s ok to be alone as long as you’re not lonely” probably never experienced it himself. Being alone almost always makes one lonely. Robert knew this feeling well. For him the days stretched endlessly and the nights were even longer. It has been 5 years since that fateful day when he tempted fate by ignoring his wife’s plea to heed a silly superstition; the one about black cats crossing one’s path.
It was supposed to be another wonderful Saturday by the river. Since they cleaned the Singapore river, the clean man-made beaches drew the crowds every weekend. Those guys from The Waterways Project certainly did an awesome job. Made up entirely of volunteers, these dedicated people spend their weekends scooping up rubbish from the riverbanks , keeping the river clean and a great place to picnic.
Mary was busy in the kitchen preparing the picnic basket. Isabel, the maid had asked for a day off today to attend a friend’s baptism and they had said ok. So, now she was straddled with preparing the picnic lunch. She had made the egg sandwiches which the kids loved and threw in the longans she had picked up at Giant Supermarket yesterday. They were so cheap but she had to push her way through the 3-deep crowd of aunties and uncles who were standing there breaking off the twigs from the longan fruit so that they would weigh less. Mary felt a little guilty doing that but what the hell, she thought everyone else was doing it. At least she wasn;t like some of them, popping the fruit into their mouths when they thought no one was looking. In between screaming at the kids to get dressed Mary finally closed the picnic basket and headed out to the car. Robert was no where to be seen. As she came back into the house, the kids rolled down the stairs. Jack and Susan, 7 and 4, were in their swimming gear and all ready to picnic. Mary yelled for Robert that they were late . They knew that since the river was cleaned, families throng it especially on weekends and if they were just 15 minutes late , their favorite spot would be taken. They bundled into the car. Robert bounded down the staircase, grabbed the car keys and ran out , slamming the front door behind him.
He started the engine and backed out the drive way when Mary screamed “STOP!”. He hit the breaks and screamed at her “ What?” She had seen a black cat dash across the path of the car as they were backing out of the driveway. Visibly shaken, Mary told them that maybe they should cancel the picnic. She had always been superstitious. She would always knock on wood if someone had said something bad or unlucky or walk around ladders or sprinkle water on her head before she stepped into the house after going to a wake. She had always been that way, for as long as she could remember . Even when she was growing up , Ah Mah had to run to the bakery to get her red bean anpan buns before she left for school on exam days. Without consuming those anpan buns her examination questions would be too difficult for her or she would surely fail her test. Her whole family was superstitious. It could have stemmed from their religious beliefs. Their whole life was built around superstitions. She had amulets hanging from her neck as a child. She wore coloured string around her wrists. Even her name at home was changed so that the spirits would get confused and stay away from her.
Mary sat in the car shaking uncontrollably as Robert tried to pacify her and tell her that everything would be ok and that they would just go for the picnic and everything would be fine. He said he did not even see the cat and that she probably just thought she saw it. None of their neighbours had cats as far as they knew so where would a cat appear out of the blue. Although still not convinced , Mary agreed reluctantly that she may have imagined it.
The kids were their usual noisy selves in the back and in between screaming at them to keep quiet, Mary nagged Robert to drive faster as she really wanted them to have their usual spot or they would have had to walk quite a distance from the car park to get to the other shaded area. Robert hit the gas and as he took a bend in the road just metres away from the public car park, something black dashed in front of the car. He swerved to avoid it. The front right tire clipped the road divider and sent the car into a tailspin. It flipped 3 times before coming to rest upside down against a tree. Robert opened his eyes. He felt nothing but smelt blood and burning rubber. He looked up and yelled for Mary and the kids……….he heard nothing but a deafening silence. As he turned his head to the left he saw a lifeless body next to him; twisted in a most unnatural way. He recognized the t-shirt. It was Mary. Half her head was a gaping hole and her eyeball was drooping out of the other socket. Robert screamed until no sound came out of his throat and he blacked out from sheer terror and exhaustion. He lived this dream over and over again.
Robert woke up in a darkened hospital room. It was very quiet and he was thirsty. It felt like he was caught in a cement mixer and every bone in his body ached; even his hair hurt. It was all very surreal; almost like having an out-of-body experience. He had to wake up from this dream. He usually could wake up from bad dreams. He just had to tell himself “ok this is not fun, time to wake up now”. It did not work this time. No matter how hard he tried, he was still on the bed wrapped in bandages. His legs were in casts and there was a drip hooked up to his arm. As he lay there wondering about Mary and the kids, the door swung open and a nurse and doctor walked in. He mumbled “ How are Mary and the kids” . The doctor and nurse looked at each other and the doctor replied that they had all died in the accident. Robert heard the words but did not understand. He heard it like someone had told him something under water. All he heard were the words “ all dead” . He screamed again and it was like screaming in an empty room with no one to hear him. As he screamed he saw Mary and the kids walking towards him and as they come near he noticed they have cat faces. He screamed again but no one can hear him. “Maybe if I scream loud enough everyone will see their cat faces too” he thought. He touched the tattoo on his right arm as though by rubbing it hard enough, Mary would magically appear before him and everything would be alright. They had had matching tattoos done on their right arms on their honeymoon in San Francisco. It read “Always Forever” within a red heart. They were so much in love. Whenever he was nervous or felt alone just rubbing the tattoo always made him feel comforted, like she was right there with him. She had always been his pillar of strength. Someone once commented that he had married his mother. She was always “mothering” him and he liked it that way. His mother had her opinion about that but in her own way she liked Mary inspite of her overbearing superstitious nature.



5 years passed. Robert had spent much of that time in the Woodbridge Psychiatric hospital , He had lost his job and was forced to sell the house and move into a HDB apartment. He was a total basket case after the accident and spent his time in the office staring at the computer screen or just talking to a companion who wasn;t there, His boss had no other choice but to let him go. He was very reluctant as Robert was one of his best salesmen. Something drew Robert to the river so with the help of his parents, he bought a resale flat in the Kallang area. They had asked him to come to live with them but he refused saying he needed his independence if he was to get better.

After endless searching for a job, Robert landed a job with the AVA , The Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority. He liked the job. He was a cat culler! There was much satisfaction for him; catching those ugly, dirty, despicable animals. He caught them and they were put to sleep. He wished that he could see the process through to the end; that would be such a “fulfilling” job. But for now, he was just contented catching those worthless creatures for someone else to have the pleasure of ending their miserable lives. He savoured the thrill of the hunt. He loved the thrill of cornering those fleabags and slipping the wire noose around their scrawny necks before tightening it and feeling them writhe and squirm trying to get out of the ever-tightening wire noose. He loved the look and feel of their desperation when he hurled them into the back of the paddy wagon…..Stupid creatures who took away his family……….
He caught an average of ten cats a day. Maybe, he thought, no one would notice if he took one home. He reached out and grabbed one by the neck and placed it into the big gunny sack he brought. The cat struggled for it’s life as though it knew that it rather be put to sleep than face what its captor had in store. It was the end of his shift and Robert headed home with his prized possession. He walked home as he had done everyday. Today there was a lightness in his step as though he could not wait to get home with his prize. Beads of perspiration flowed down his brow and his t-shirt is soaking wet by the time he pushed open the door to his neat but spartan one bedroom apartment. He looked around to see if anyone noticed him entering his apartment with the gunny sack. His neighbours had long since ignored him because he never returned their greetings; rushing by them, head bowed low. He riped off his t-shirt and panted as he flung the gunny sack in the direction of the kitchen. He stood naked in the kitchen and grabbed the knife from the drawer. His hands shook as he reached out for the gunny sack and slowly untied the knot. This was almost like foreplay he told himself; it was so exciting. The cat, actually merely a kitten , was all silent and quiet. Maybe it was already dead from being thrown about so wildly. Robert reached inside, felt for the soft furry body. All of a sudden the cat lurched out, claws barred and drew blood from his hand. He screamed in pain but instead of withdrawing his hand he reached out and found the kitten’s small neck. He grabbed it with such force that he actually snapped it. Mercifully the kitten was already dead and would not feel the pain it was about to endure, He pulled out the already lifeless kitten and started to sever its head with the somewhat dull blade. There was a sickening sound as blade met flesh and blood spurted all over the man’s naked body. He was now laughing uncontrollably and continued to saw until every drop of blood was drained from the now beheaded animal. The pleasure he felt was almost orgasmic. Robert walked to the shower with the cat’s head in his hand and proceeded to take a shower as he lovingly caressed the cat’s head. He washed the blood off his body and watched it flow down the drain. It was like a ritual cleansing. He had gotten rid of one more pest the world could do without and it was one step closer to his “vindication”. All clean now he placed the cat’s head in the refrigerator. He picked up the knife and lifeless headless body. He placed the body in a black thrash bag and hurled it down the rubbish chute. He smiled to himself and congratulated himself for a job that was complete and he had a “trophy” to show too. He felt hungry, the first time in a long while; he felt like having fish tonight.
9 ; that was how many cats he needed to kill to be completely cleansed of the guilt. 9 lives would absolve him of the guilt of not having listened to his wife that fateful morning when she pleaded with him in the car to cancel the picnic. The next 5 cats were just as easy to get as the first. A couple of them almost got away but he still managed to bludgeon them to death with a hammer, always careful not to hit the head as those were his trophies. He now had 6 heads in his refrigerator. He also started carrying a sharpened knife to work, just in case he had to help out finish off the job. So far no one has asked him to help, but you never know.
He had to work late that Thursday so instead of going home and having to fix his dinner, Robert decided to stop by the hawker center on his way home. It was almost 11pm. He enjoyed the fish soup at a particular stall which stayed open past midnight. The fish was always fresh. He sat by himself at a corner table and just as he was finishing the last few drops of soup he spotted a man at the next table slurping on a large bowl of laksa noodles. He was obese. Robert guessed that the man was about 300 lbs and because he was only about five feet nothing, he looked even bigger. He was a slob. His shirt front was stained with droplets of laksa gravy. Robert thought to himself “ those laksa stains are going to be a bitch to get out” . As he watched the man rapturously eat his laksa, savouring every strand of noodle , every bloody raw cockle, Robert stared at the man’s face. The man’s features started to change. His tongue flicked back and forth and his nose twitched. His eyes turned a funny runny yellow colour and his face took on a feline appearance. Even his mannerisms were very feline. Beads of sweat gathered on Robert’s brow as he knew what he had to do. He waited, sipping patiently on his drink as he watched the fat cat finish his dinner. “Eat up my sweet feline” thought Robert; “ enjoy your last meal.”
As the fat man got off his stool, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and lumbered off. Robert followed him into the darkness. The man turned into a dark alleyway. He needed to relieve himself. As the droplets of urine hit the pavement, Robert pulled out the knife from his bag; looked around to see if there was anyone around. The side street was empty this time of night and many of the street lamps were out but he saw the fat man very clearly almost as if he had cat’s eyes that could see in the dark. With 2 swift strokes, he ran the knife back and forth along the fat man’s neck severing the jugular vein. The knife was so sharp the man felt nothing and slumped to the ground. In the shadows Robert watched as the life pumped out of the man’s neck. The body shook involuntarily, legs kicked outwards at his unseen assailant.. The man hardly made a whimper as his blood drained from him. Robert remembered how growing up as a child in a kampong, he had watched his mother slaughter chickens by cutting their necks, twisting their heads under their wings and then throwing them in the garden to bleed to death. He remembered how he and some friends would just stoop around watching the chicken bleed to death. It would flutter it’s wings and jump up and down in its final dance of death, They would take bets as to how long before the chicken would stop moving altogether. After the body stoped moving, he bent over the body and with several hard whacks Robert severed the head completely, popped it into his bag and headed home with trophy number 7.
The was a sudden absence of cats wandering in the HDB estate over the next few days. A lady , calling herself the cat lady had started a farm for cats in Ponggol. It was a “safe haven” for the strays so that they would not be culled. She and some volunteers had been patrolling the estates catching the strays and bringing them to the farm so that they would be safe. Robert thought these “cat people” were insane to spend so much time and effort trying to “save” these useless, smelly and murderous animals. Soon, he thought, these people would turn into cats themselves if they were not careful. Cats had a spirit in them to cast spells on people who got too close to them. That’s what Mary used to tell him that’s why she never allowed the children to have any pets especially cats. Mary also hated cats because when she was a little girl she was scratched on her hand while playing with a neighbour’s cat. From that day onwards she avoided them like the plague. She especially hated it when they would wander around some of the hawker centers and actually come up to the tables looking for food. Sometimes she would kick at them but she always remembered the pain of that scratch on her hand so she would prefer to give them a wide berth. She had had to go to the doctor for a tetanus shot and that hurt even more than the scratch.
After another “disappointing” day at work with nothing to do, Robert decided to take a walk to the Singapore river after his usual dinner of fish soup. Its almost 8pm and as he approached the bus stop at Kallang Bahru, he saw a young girl sitting there waiting for the bus to arrive. As he approached her, she looked at him and gave him a disgusted look. He was still in his work clothes and his disheveled hair gave him an unkempt look; almost like one of those homeless people she sometimes came across when her flight stewardess job brought her to places like San Francisco. They were covered with filth and God knows when they had their last shower. She turned away from Robert as he approached. He saw her disgusted look and as he passed her he saw her pointed ears and whiskers protruding from the sides of her cheeks. He smiled to himself and continued walking past the bus stop. A few metres away he doubled back behind the bushes next to the bus stop. The street was quiet that time of the night and no one was about. The girl had taken out her lipstick and little mirror and was applying a gloss to her lips. Robert moved so quietly and quickly, she did not even look up when he grabbed her from behind and in a split second ran his knife along her throat slicing it open from ear to ear. She hardly made a whimper. Her lipstick and mirror fell to the roadside with a clink as he dragged her lifeless body behind the bushes, he smiled to himself thinking “ Number 8 one more to go”; one more gruesome "trophy" in his refrigerator. He loved to open his refrigerator to admire his "trophies". The cold air had stiffened the hair on the heads and each one had their own scream frozen on their faces for eternity.

Robert woke up feeling strange as though he was up all night. He suddenly felt what it was like to be a nocturnal creature. He felt alive at night and strangely very tired and sleepy by day. He dragged himself out of bed and felt the stubble on his chin. He was not a hairy person by any means but this morning as he ran his palm along his chin and cheek he was surprised to feel and unusual growth of hair. He didn’t think anything of it as he stumbled to the bath room. Eyes half closed he brushed his teeth and after a few rinces of water he reached out for the razor. It was one of those old barbershop 6 inch blades which he had actually used on some of his “escapades”. He liked to keep the blade gleaming and sharp . He loved the feel of the cold steel against his cheek and neck. After he lathered up , eyes still closed he placed the blade against his neck and opened his eyes………….his mouth dropped open as he looked into the mirror as staring back at him was the face of ……..A Cat! He moved backwards rubbing his face vigorously trying to wipe off the cat face . Nothing happened . With a scream he slammed his fist against the mirror shattering it. Robert saw literally hundreds of cat faces screaming back at him. He raised the blade and started cutting up the cat face . As the blood squirted all over the mirror and bathroom floor, Robert ran the blade against his neck almost severing it as he fell lifeless to the floor.

A cat wandered aimlessly outside the apartment and sensed the door was ajar. It meowed hungrily as if it smelled a banquet inside. Its meowing was a signal to the other hungry cats in the neighbourhood to come for food. Soon the other cats arrived, pushed open the door and wandered in to feast on what was inside.

24 hours later a lady walked by Robert’s apartment and smelled a horrible stench wafting from the half opened front door. As she pushed the door open , she was startled by a cat which rushed past her. She noticed it had blood stains on its mouth. She pushed the door open and screamed as she saw ten to fifteen cats feasting on the near naked body of Robert Tan. She ran out of the apartment , fumbled for her cellphone and called the police. She was hysterical and in between sobs , the conversation between the lady and the police sounded so much like cats meowing at each other………………..

It was Sunday and the Clean River Committee was in their boat cleaning the Singapore river. With their nets they fished whatever rubbish and debris they spotted floating in the river. Soon the river was to be dammed to turn it into another water source for Singapore. Although there were campaigns to educate people on the importance of not littering in the waterways, the Committee still “fished” out a sizeable load every weekend. Recently there had been bizarre “finds”……headless bodies of cats and other animals; maybe someone was performing a bloody ritual somewhere along the banks of the Singapore river. Suddenly someone spotted a floating “object” on the side of the river. As the boat pulled up alongside , they used a net and scooped it up. The people on the boat gasped as they lifted another headless body of a cat out of the water. Someone called out , “Hey Look! the cat has a tattoo of a red heart with the words Always Forever!” and somewhere in the bushes by the edge of the river a cat's moanful meow pierced the quiet Sunday morning...........


THE END