Blinding circular lights sliced through the darkened cloudless sky like a knife. Humming from a distant engine drowned out the usual chirps from backyard crickets. Seth shielded his eyes with his forearm and stared at the descending spacecraft.
Branches of varying lengths and sizes quavered along the trunks of both giant cherry trees, threatening to snap from their elevated perches. Their remnant leaves fluttered, each one buffeted by a strong breeze stirred by the approaching ship. Light flooded the backyard lawn and illuminated each unkempt blade of grass.
He let out a disappointed sigh.
Spaceships in the movies dwarfed this one. The descending vessel fit inside his backyard with room to spare. It even cleared the picket fence separating Seth’s yard from the vacant duplex.
“Is this UFO piloted by tiny aliens?”
Seth cracked a grin and chuckled at his own question. Maybe the gray aliens were much smaller in stature than those alleged government whistleblowers let on.
His eyes trailed from left to right, searching for any neighbors who also noticed a spaceship landing in his backyard. Porch lights and illuminated windows told him he wasn’t the lone person on the block at home. But Seth quickly noted he was the only one standing outside. A crease formed in his brow, and he scratched his head.
Was the Thursday night NFL game this week really that captivating?
A distinct hiss greeted his ears. The spaceship extended landing gear and kicked up a swirl of fallen leaves that peppered the grass. Seconds later, a circular opening formed on the belly of the ship and a platform surrounded by a transparent column descended like an elevator from that same spot. An alien wearing a silver spacesuit and matching helmet rode the platform.
“That alien is the same size as Tiger.”
Seth shook his head in disbelief. The alien stood on all fours just like an ordinary animal and stepped off the platform when it touched grass. He stared unblinking as a tail covered in spacesuit fabric sprang up behind the alien creature. It twitched back and forth as the alien trotted over to him.
No question this was an animal.
From another planet.
“What the … Who …” Seth paused while he searched for the right words. “Where did —”
A distortion of his halting words echoed back to him, derailing Seth’s train of thought. Each word sounded garbled and twisted like it had been fed through an electronic synthesizer.
“Language analysis complete,” a voice said. “Translation enabled.”
Seth scrunched up his nose and lips. An odd sounding voice. A cadence couched in the words best suited to a feline.
“I am Faith,” the alien said, stopping a couple of feet from him. “I bring you greetings from my home planet Ferafelis.”
Seth crouched down to get a closer look at the alien creature. He cocked his head and his brows knit together.
“Fera … what?”
He instinctively reached out to touch the alien’s helmet. It backpedaled a couple of steps. At once, the helmet retracted and revealed the last thing Seth expected to see.
A cat’s face.
Orange fur with distinctive tabby stripes covered the feline’s head. Two ethereal green eyes settled on Seth’s hand. The cat’s whiskers twitched while it cautiously sniffed his fingertips.
“You have a strange odor,” Faith said, abruptly pulling away from his hand again.
Seth withdrew his hand and examined his fingers. He found the alien cat’s blunt remark quite offensive. But he had also grown too tongue tied to respond with a decent comeback.
“I am a designated envoy of Zeus — queen of Ferafelis.” Faith’s eyes never strayed from Seth for a second while speaking. “Our honorable queen has sent me to open a dialogue with your planet’s ruler in advance of her arrival.”
“My planet’s ruler?” Seth repeated.
“Correct. Can you direct me to their palace?”
Seth scratched his head. He glanced over his shoulder and his eyes darted to the screen door leading out to the backyard. Mindy was nowhere in sight.
How was nobody else seeing this — including his wife?
“I don’t … think … um.” Seth stumbled over his words as he faced the alien cat again. “See … the thing is …”
“I see plenty.” Faith’s tone grew cross. “You are merely an ignorant servant. Where is your master?”
The alien cat trotted past him toward the backdoor. Seth wheeled around toward the door. Tiger stood wide-eyed on the other side of the screen. His markings matched Faith but he had gray fur instead of orange. Tiger also had only one back leg — the result of an accident he suffered while still a kitten, shortly after Mindy adopted him.
“Finally … intelligent life,” Faith said.
The alien cat approached a flap serving as a pet door. Tiger stepped through the flap and greeted their extraterrestrial visitor. Faith offered up a couple of friendly meows. Tiger’s ears instantly flattened against his skull. He hissed and retorted with an angry meow.
Faith recoiled for a moment. The alien cat quickly started forward again and appeared intent on rubbing his head against his Earth counterpart.
Tiger was having none of it.
He reached out and swatted the other feline in the forehead twice. Tiger hissed again and uttered another angry meow. Faith retreated and delivered his own barrage of agitated meows before turning away.
The alien cat immediately trotted past Seth’s legs back toward the spaceship.
“Wait! Where are you going?” Seth finally gained enough composure to speak complete sentences. He turned on his heel toward the retreating animal. “You just got here.”
“I was told I am not welcome here,” Faith said, punctuating the last word with a hiss. “Your cat overlord declared this world is his territory. He will only share it with his mom and the hairless land ape.”
Seth frowned and instinctively brushed his fingers across his receding hairline.
“Hairless? Land ape?”
“Our gracious queen will not be pleased.” Faith’s eyes burned into his own. “Your hostility does not bode well for your future.”
The alien cat’s helmet slid back over its furry head. Faith abruptly turned away again and marched back to the spaceship. Seth stood dumbfounded, unable to move or look away as the platform retreated back into the ship. Engines ignited a minute later. The diminutive spaceship shot upward at lightning speed before finally vanishing amid scattered clouds.
“What’s going on out here?”
Seth turned and faced the backdoor again. Mindy stood on the other side of the screen with a perplexed look on her face.
“I heard Tiger yowling and hissing from the other room. When I came to the door —”
“Did you see the spaceship take off?”
Mindy nodded. She licked her lips and cast her light brown eyes toward the darkened sky.
“Did we just have an alien show up at our doorstep?”
“Yeah.”
“Is this a good thing or a bad thing?”
Seth pondered how to answer her question because he wasn’t sure if he was ready to face the truth. Tiger wound around Mindy’s legs and cooed at her. Seth scowled at the three-legged tabby cat. He acted too calm in the face of a potential catastrophe — one which he caused.
Tiger basically picked a fight with a race of advanced alien felines already on their way to Earth.
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It was a cute and funny story. We all know that if there’s a feline in residence that they are the lord and master of the manor, and I’m a dog owner saying this! 😂 Never had the opportunity to have cats as my dad was allergic to them.
Lmfao! Yes, Tiger is our cat overlord.
I like that this didn’t have a need to take us to the actual leadership/UN/President route. It was easily “solved” with cat-to-cat communication. Whether we don’t know if Tiger had set Earth up for a war or bought us time, its a fun take on first encounters.
Had fun reading it John! Looking forward to more works!