Mort(e)

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Before he took his new name, before the animals rose up and overthrew their oppressors, before there was talk of prophecies and saviors, the great warrior Mort(e) was just a house cat known to his human masters as Sebastian. It was a time that now returned to him only in dreams and random moments of nostalgia that disappeared as quickly as they arose. All of it except for Sheba. The memory of her was always digging at him like a splinter under a nail.

Sebastian’s mother, a nameless stray, gave birth to her litter in the cargo bed of a pickup truck. If he tried hard enough, Mort(e) could see brief flashes of those days spent suckling with his brother and sister. He could recall the warmth of his mother’s fur, the rough surface of her tongue, the sound of her cooing, the smell of his siblings as they climbed over him, the wetness of their breath.

He could not, however, remember the circumstances that separated him from his family. There were no records for him to consult once he became sentient. All he could do was imagine the truck driver — most likely a friend of the Martinis, his eventual owners — discovering the destitute brood while loading the vehicle one morning. Sebastian’s mother probably hissed and scratched when the humans removed her kittens. But in the end, she must have been grateful to be relieved of them. Instinct told her that she had fulfilled her evolutionary role and was still young enough to have more kittens.

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