Callum, Ivaylo and Evan discuss pets
So I was working in the water pumping station one day and I happen to overhear a weird conversation.
“Do you think cats had control over their tails?” Ivaylo asked.
She was talking to Evan, the both of them were spot welding a pipe system, and I was crouched down ten feet away over another pipe, filing off some rust to prepare it for installation.
I looked up from my work and frowned at her inane question. She was like this though, asking random questions, I shouldn’t have been surprised.
Evan stopped the welder and flipped up the visor that was protecting his eyes.
Unlike me he didn’t seemed weirded out by the question.
If he had been then maybe he wouldn’t have engaged, which was a mistake.
“Why would you ask that question?” Evan replied.
“Yeah you guys were just talking about the 30th Marvel film, what on Earth made you think to ask that?” I said.
“In all fairness we were talking about the 4th Black Panther film…Panther...Cats...cat’s tails,” Evan explained.
I shrugged.
“I was just thinking of my cat, and how even when he stood still, his tail would move around like an octopus tentacle. He didn’t need it for balance at that point, so why was it moving around like that?” Ivaylo said.
“I don’t have answer to your stupid question,” Evan said.
“You had a cat?” I asked Ivaylo.
“Yeah, I called it Metodi.”
“Nice name, did it survive until the end?” I asked carefully, tip toeing around what might be a delicate conversation. I only asked because most people ate their pets in those last days of the Earth. A sad topic of conversation I admit. My family almost ate our family dog. I know morbid, however food was drying up along with all the water.
“No he died a few months before the end, he was an old cat,” Ivaylo said.
“Did you eat it?” Evan’s asked, not one for restraining his words.
“No of course not,” Ivaylo said, “Although not from a lack of trying.”
“Explain,” I said standing up from my crouching position to listen more intently and without my ankles screaming at me in pain.
“My grandmother said we should eat the cat when he died, however when we were cooking Metodi…” she sniffed a little at the memory. “He caught fire and was too burned to eat.”
“A cremation… very respectful, but environmentally unfriendly,” Evan said.
Ivaylo scowled, “I don’t think global warming was on our mind,” she said. “We needed to eat,” she added.
“Hey I’m not judging,” Evans said. “I had a tortoise,” he stated.
“Why do you bring that up…?” I began. “Do you know what, forget about it, I don’t want to know."
“They make a great soup,” Evan said with a big smile.
“Evan that was your pet,” Ivaylo said.
“He was very easy to catch,” Evan said and chuckled.
“You’re kidding aren’t you?”
“I’m not,” he said. “I miss that guy, I think he hated us actually, he had this habit of running at our legs and head-butting us, my mum tripped up on him on more than one occasion. His name was Dom. My brother, when he was five, him not the tortoise, painted Dom’s name on the back of his shell,” he smiled again at the fond memories.
“So you ate him.”
“He died of natural causes,” Evan said, “I’m not...”
“A total sociopath!” Ivaylo interrupted finishing his sentence.
“…A pet killer. What about you Callum, did you have a pet?” He asked.
“I had a dog.”
“Was it tasty?”
“NO, she was not, in fact as far as I know she was alive when the Earth was destroyed.”
“As far as you know?” Evan asked.
“My family was moved to a military base for our protection right before the end. Cassie came with us. I foresaw that we might have to eat her so one night I snuck out of the base and set her free. She lived the last few months of her life wild in the Lake District.”
“That’s a nice story,” Ivaylo said.
“I had to scream and shout at her, to force her to leave me. Goodness knows what she thought about me at the end,” I said and stared into space as I thought about her shiny blonde fur, and soulful black eyes.”
All three of us stood there for a moment thinking of our pets.
Evan broke the silence.
“Dogs wag their tails for no reason,” he stated with a confused look on his face, returning to the reason for this conversation.
“Maybe the tail is another lifeform, one that’s attached to the dog and cat and moves of its own accord,” Ivaylo suggested.
“That’s dumb,” Evan said.
“But possible?” Ivaylo ventured.
"No, no it’s not,” Evan said, and he flipped the visor down and started up the welder again.