What A Long Strange Trip It's Been

by Spyder & BlackJack

As we slept that fine May night, we had no idea what we were about to experience. The two of us were sleeping on either side of meowmie, with Sketti snuggled in at the foot of the bed. As we slept, it seemed the bed was taking off, rather like Dorothy's house in the Wizard of Oz. We clung to the sheets with our claws, hanging on for dear life! What in the world was going on! Finally, after what seemed an eternity, we found our bed gliding down to a stop. We carefully relinquished our hold on the sheets, and looked around. Where was this place, what was this place? The view was awesome, with a bright sun sparkling through a fine canopy of strange trees. We both looked around, trying to figure out just where we had landed. Then, we spied a pair of eyes looking at us from the trees. It was a giant cat! This cat was the size of a tiger, but had the features of a domestic cat, just many times larger. Then we saw something even weirder, it was a tiny human, the size of us! The huge cat spoke, in cat language just like we used. "Welcome to our planet. My name is Kalabi. Let me take you to our home, and we shall make you welcome with a feast. It's not often we get visitors from Earth." We jumped off the bed, and began to follow him, marveling at the lovely smell coming from the trees. It smelled like catnip, but we knew catnip only grew as a small plant, not huge trees. As we ambled along, we were both awestruck by the size of our host. He looked like a house cat on steroids. At times, we would catch a glimpse of the small human, following along the path, but keeping hidden in the undergrowth. The human appeared to be a female, but she was so skittish, it was hard to get a good look at her. Finally we came to a clearing, and saw a wonderful home, crafted of trees, flowers and soft grasses. We followed Kalabi inside, and saw a virtual cat paradise. Plushy beds lined the floor, bowls were filled to overflowing with what smelled just like tuna fish, and there were several other huge cats relaxing by the windows. Kalabi scooped some of the food into a small dish, and invited us to make ourselves comfortable with a snack. We sat and ate, all the while wondering what sort of place this was. Finally, BlackJack asked Kalabi to tell us about his home planet. Kalabi settled into a comfortable position and began to speak of how a few cats had found themselves in this paradise. None of them recalled how they had gotten here, but it was a cat paradise, with catnip the size of trees, fresh tuna swimming in the lakes, and a very special atmosphere. The cats grew and grew, and as they settled into a community, kittens were born. But these kittens were different, they were huge! Those kittens grew to the size of tigers, but maintained their normal cat physiology, so they looked just like giant housecats. The colony flourished, and as the years passed, the large size cat became the main form of life on the planet. Kalabi said they were all mystified by one thing. At night, while they were sleeping, they would hear small rustlings, and find bits of tuna missing, and see tiny footprints in the dirt. One night, Kalabi and his friends pretended to sleep, and they found the source of the rustling. There were tiny humans, the size of domestic cats, and they were taking bits of tuna. In time, the cats managed to tame the humans, and the small humans began to live with the cats. The humans were quite interesting for the cats to watch, and the strange colony of huge cats and small humans lived in peace and tranquility. Kalabi related that the humans were unsure how they had come to be there, living as pets to the cat colony. But all lived in harmony, sharing the bounty of the planet, and enjoying the magnificent beauty of the land. We both were spellbound as Kalabi spoke, his words had entranced us, and the smell of the catnip trees had put us both into a catnip haze such as we had never experienced. Kalabi could see we needed to nap after such a day, and he settled us into a corner bed, where we could see the huge catnip trees, and feel the warm sun. Amazingly, as we dozed off, we felt another warm body close by, it was one of the tiny humans, curling up next to us. We dreamed of Kalabi, and could smell the catnip through our dreams. As our whiskers twitched and our tails flicked in dreamland, we found our bed once again spinning and rising into the clouds. "Thank you Kalabi! We hope to come back to visit again!" we meowed as we flew into the sky. Then, reality struck as we awoke in our meowmie's bed. We were back home, back from the most unusual journey to a most unusual planet. Had this actually happened? Or had we been having one of those vivid dreams like our meowmie had all the time? Spyder had picked one of the delicate flowers she found growing in front of Kalabi's home, and had been sleeping with it tucked under her paw there on the unusual planet. Imagine our surprise when we saw the little flower, still tucked under Spyder's paw. We had indeed been there, and as we jumped off the bed to go have our breakfast, we gave meowmie and Sketti a sly wink. We could almost see Kalabi winking back!