Linda and Liz Meet Aliens
By Elizabeth Babcock, East Sierra Branch
It was a fine Sunday afternoon. Linda had finished the paperwork for a Maturango Museum petroglyph tour, and we were enjoying chatting and walking around the labyrinth on the museum grounds.
As we got to the upright black rock in the middle, we suddenly noticed that we were surrounded by a crowd of sleek and healthy-looking cats. One large tabby addressed us. “You will pet us now,” he said.
Suddenly the black rock began to glow — and we were amazed to see that the glowing beam was holding a large furry bowl overhead.
The bowl descended to our level, and the leader cat commanded us to jump in. Linda and I gave each other an astonished look, but what could we do? We obeyed.
Inside the bowl we were inundated by cats, all commanding, “Scratch my belly.” So we tried to scratch them all, but of course they worked hard to stay just out of arm’s reach.
Then one of them hissed, “Where’s my tuna fish?” The others took up the call, some commandingly, some more quietly, but all insistently. As soon as they determined that we had no tuna fish, they pushed us out — and much to our bewilderment, the furry bowl sailed off, cats and all.
“Those guys were even more demanding than my petroglyph participants,” Linda observed.
“I always knew cats were aliens,” I answered.
This story comes from the same East Sierra Branch
writing challenge that produced two previous showcase stories,
one by James Simmons and the other by Linda Saholt.