Black Catz

Chapter Fifteen - "These Boots Are Made For Fightin'"

In the corner of the room where Luviel is still letting me have it, the blinking light is also still letting me have it—the same blinking light that was once waiting for my mother in the corner of the room, is, perhaps, now waiting on me.

"Fuck you all!" I say to it, right at the blinking, red light. "We're not following anyone!"

I wonder how many people are behind that lens? Not literally, but physically somewhere else, somewhere to wherever the picture being memorized by the lens is going, is lasering to—wherever it's being projected, directed and sent.

I know the Catz are one of the directors, the receivers. And probably the state too. And some of the Party.

But who else?

"Everyone fucking down!" said the first state.

Then the next statement came from the bullet that went straight into the ceiling, then onto the air, then onto the sky, then probably not, onto the galaxy, but rather, back on the ground, where we'll probably end up too.

Well—we know one of the receivers is the state from the way the camera lens is looking at me, by the color it blinks. State always uses red and blue.

Then the voice—the state voice—repeated its last cry:

"Everyone fucking down!"

And the bullet repeated the last cry too, telling us what its rightful owner so-desperately wanted us to know.

CLAP!

My grandmother was the first to fall.

I thought it was just the shock at first. And it should have been. But her heart had other plans.

"Mom!" the lady with my name—my mother—later yelled after all these years, after all this time my grandmother and I had spent alone and wishing she would have cried out that word even if it was just for a day, as long it was scream at a moment like this, when it's too late to do anything at all...to save each other in any way.

"Mom!" she repeated.

And so did the head of state:

"Don't fucking mom, mam!" the state declared...war.

One of the bullets busts and comes down on a window, bringing in some of the dusty, white gravel that covered the whole delta around us.

"Nobody fucking move!" yelled the state man. He was a large fellow. A little overweight. And he sported the biggest and thickest mustache I ever did lay my pupils on. His stache was garnished with grey, whitish brushes, like his hair, whichever remained under his red and blue cap. I remember the same cap on Henry. This sergeant's ears are also huge. Could they be to not miss anything? To hear everything? Perhaps that's how--and only how—he heard all of this commotion.

Behind the sergeant, a hard-jawed, thin-faced, green-eyed, strict-haircut man stood tall and confident. His hair was parted at the edge of his right side, then it curled back just as his hairline curled into one part, but was not receding whatsoever, or hiding. His neck looked strong as well, and his shoulders looked sturdy, able to carry anything or anyone. His body even fits perfectly into his uniform. Not too big, not too thin. Something about the boy caught my attention. It made me feel weak at the knees.

My fear is kicking in.

We are all at attendance.

*******