Entries, Featured, You Didn’t Write That: Entries
I, Clawdius–
Sep
Literati!
Never underestimate the reach of A Word with You Press! Here we have an entry from Wendy Joseph, an able-bodied sea-person on a ship somewhere between Oceanside and Shanghai.Wendy is an accomplished author, and I do hope that once you read and comment on her entry, you’ll check out the link to her book–hell, why not buy it? You can enter our contest yourself–just reach up a few inches almost directly above these words and pull down “Contests” from the menu bar. Our contest is You didn’t write that. That prompt must appear somewhere in your story.
Here is Wendy’s take
Yes I Did
By Wendy Joseph
The note said “I am watching you. From above.” I looked up at Jean Lafitte. “You didn’t write that.” He arched out of a crouch, landed almost silently on the rug from atop his climbing tree perch, and immediately flopped over on his back, paws curled up and head extended in The Position, the “All right, Mommy, I’m ready for my tummy rub” position. I obliged, putting his catnip pillow under his head, which he nudged blissfully.
“Not everybody has it as good as you. You know there are starving cats all over the world. I’ve fed them. You don’t care about that, do you?”
Lafitte was too busy purring to answer. His rich black sheen was getting even thicker for winter. I wiped some hairs from my hand and sat at the Open Sesame 521, the new combined voice and motion activated communications program I was working on, for severely physically disabled people who had all their mental acuity but few ways to share it. A shadow moved beside me, and the computer voice said, “When is dinner?”
Lafitte sat by the keyboard, purring softly. He looked up at me.
“Jean Lafitte. You did write that?
He moved toward the screen, about to speak again.
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Here is Wendy’s info. Please feel free to include similar stuff when you send in your own entry. A Word with You Press exists to support writers in every way we can!
Does the cat live onboard with the crew, or are you solo with best friend walking the widow’s walk. This is creative, nice, and entertaining. The tech niche makes the ending, but you knew that. Great reading your stuff again.
Alas, my Jean Lafitte is happily ashore whilst I troll the unending waves. There is another ship out there, a Matson container ship that has two cats aboard, belonging to one of the two alternating captains. No animals on my other ships, unless you count hitchhiking sea birds. Sometimes the storm petrels crash in exhaustion and I tenderly care for them until they are ready to go back in the water and the air. They don’t do-do much either. Now those damn big red footed boobies who pave the deck and windows with guano–anybody got a shotgun?
What? The captains are altered! I thought they just did that to the cats.
Um, that may have been a misprint for capstan, which alternately goes around and stands still, or possibly Caspian, a certain body of water by the Caucasus Mts, but how it alters I can’t recall. Come to think of it, I may have meant altar, which makes sense as the ancient Egyptians worshiped cats, but I haven’t seen any feline temples recently, except of course for the majestic and noble temples of my cats, which are without parallel, whether or not they went to Temple University . . . (to be continued, possibly, but not right now)
Oh how you do have fun. Be careful out there.
Pappa Mike
Well if you can’t understand when animals talk to you – then I highly recommend this program. Great stuff Wendy. I’m allergic to cats but I have talked with them and they are definitely in a niche all of their own. I swear they will learn to send messages some day!
Meeeeeeeeeeow, meeeeow! Meowwww!
Translation: Hi Wendy, such a cool story…meeeeow!
Thorn, where do you come up with these pictures?!
I steal them
Would make a cute animated film… thanks Wendy.
oh oh oh, I am a crazy cat lady, oh very yes, and i wear black and purple and lime green and drag sticks through fences as often as i can without getting an arseload of rock salt from a furious shotgun wiedling elder.
love this:D