The cat in the chat
“Kate is so upset.”
“I know. That cat was her life. Is she joining us, by the way?”
“No. Didn’t you see? There was a message in the chat, said she can’t. It was weird, actually, in the third person. C’mon, let’s get a table.”
“There’s one over there. Where did she even get that cat?”
“The lab. Don’t you remember? She rescued it when the experiments ended, maybe twelve years back?”
“I must’ve been away. She had it when I got back from Taiwan.”
“Oh, yeah, of course. So, you didn’t hear about her daring cat rescue?”
“No! Was it? Wait, let’s order, then tell me. Can I get a latte, oat milk?”
“I’ll have a slice of Victoria sponge, cup of tea, please. Thanks. Ok, so Kate’s lab had been doing experiments for months, got a grant to expand from mice to cats, plans to expand to monkeys after that. Biopsychology, brains, I dunno, You’d have to ask her. She was fine with the mice, but the cats, that was too much for her. Kate’s always been a sucker for cats. Trichinosis, or whatever.”
“You mean Toxoplasma.”
“Yeah, brain parasites, make you love cats.”
“Yep, gotcha. Oh, thanks. Such good coffee here. How’s your cake?”
“Good. Want a bite? Anyway, she pulled a classic move, took photos of the lab experiments, posted them online, there was a lot of outrage. She snuck in with a cat carrier, liberated three cats, she said. She placed two of them in other homes, kept one. She said he was special, said he was her familiar. Never knew what that meant.”
“It’s what witches have in stories. You know, like a special animal, a black cat or whatever.”
“Oh. Right.”
“So, that’s it? She kept a lab animal as a pet? I guess the experiments didn’t work.”
“Guess not. Maybe they’d have shut them down anyway. But she was really funny about that cat, wouldn’t let anyone look after it when she went away, always took him with her. Talked to him, sometimes, made it sound like he was talking back. Like ventriloquism or something. Never when she thought we could see, mind. But she totally treated it like a person.”
“She must be really sad.”
“Yeah, but also, it’s a cat, right? Get another one. Hang on, my butt is vibrating. Speak of the… it’s Kate, would we please attend the wake, honour her best friend. I mean, come on.”
“For her best friend. She must be really cut up.”
“It’s a cat, though.”
“Look, she attached a video.”
“Holy shit. Is that cat talking?”
“It’s gotta be a fake. What even is this?”
“I don’t think that’s a fake. How would she know how to fake videos? She’s a lab assistant. Jesus H, they’re at the table together. She really trained him… Wait, what the... Holy crap. Is he… brushing her hair?”
“She looks like she’s asleep.”
“Hang on... Is that a coffin?”
Emma Burnett is an Oxford-based researcher and writer. She is currently doing her doctorate, researching local food systems. She has had publications in The Conversation and Urban Food Futures, as well as contributing to grey literature and policy documents that she’s sure no one but her mother has read.