Ratlines

This ship was different. I could feel it in my whiskers.

It wasn't the first ship I'd been aboard, but it was unlike anything I'd ever witnessed. It was grand, stretching further than I could see. It was lit with a thousand torches, thrumming with a thousand footfalls, teeming with a thousand rats. All my life had been preparing me for an opportunity such as this.

I was born in a shipyard, waking to the cries of the gulls and slumbering to the crashing of waves. As one of six in a litter, I did not stand out from my littermates. We were all varying shades of tabby grey, like our mother; born to blend in amongst the soot, shadows, and cobblestones of the city.

By the time I could toddle I was venturing out to the docks, chasing the effervescent smells of fish, rats, and all the delicious things those gangly, skinky two-leggers liked to eat. When I'd followed my nose and slunk across my first ganglank it marked the end of my kittenhood, and the beginning of a new era.

An era of adventure.

The stinky, gangly two-leggers didn't care much for me on that cargo ship, save one that was the youngest, stinkiest, and gangliest of them all. I called him Sunny, because he had hair the colour of the sun. He fed me scraps and scratched between my ears, and occasionally I'd treat him to rubbing my face on his leg. We sailed for what I thought was going to be an eternity, while I honed both my rat-hunting skills and sea-paws.

The ship docked on new lands, and I ran down the rat lines better than any rat I'd ever seen. I was young, hungry, and filled with the spirit of adventure. I chose my next ship based on smell alone, and spent the next several months with a round, stinky two-legger I called Scram. Because that's what he liked to yell at me. I enjoyed running between his legs as he walked, especially during rough weather. He didn't find that game as funny as I did.

By now I'd learned to love the taste of the salt on my lips, craved a belly full of shimp and sea rats, and could no longer sleep without the rocking of the waves. When Scram docked his ship and I jumped off, narrowly avoiding his boot, I made my way along the docks to find a new home.

Then I saw her. She was a whole new world, the Titanic. She boasted an endless supply of food and adventures, and I was just the cat to pillage such spoils. Gathering my courage and extending my claws, I climbled a thick, tethered rope across the black, cold water below and made my way safely into the understory.

We set sail the following morning. The gangly, stinky two-leggeds aboard flapped about noisily to the ones who remained on land. I felt sorry for those with their boots still firmly planted on the ground, for they would never know what they were missing.

I was not the only cat aboard the Titanic. There were several others like me, some friendly and others not. None of them interested me.

But she did.

She had fur whiter than the clouds in the sky, than the first snow of winter, than the crests of waves crashing out at sea. And her eyes. Pale blue. Her button nose was pressed in to her face, hidden amongst the fluff of her thick mane. The way her her delicate pink tongue darted out to lick her paws as she groomed herself was enough to drive me wild.

I had to meet her.

She was not among the rest of us cats, down below where we belonged. She was up with the two-leggers, the fancy ones that stunk less, eating canned tuna from a shiny platter. I didn't care where she was from or who she was. I couldn't live another day without trying to make her acquaintance, or to at least know I tried. Late at night I stealthed my way among the shadows from the lower decks to the upper where she resided. The two-legger she kept was a good pet, for it carried her everywhere, fed her, and cleaned up after her as if she were royalty. Maybe she was. It would explain the sparkling band around her neck.

I scratched upon the door. Her two-legger opened it, peeking out quickly. She did not notice me as I snuck by beneath her layers of frilly clothing and hid behind an overstuffed scratching post. After the two-legger fell back asleep, she came to me.

She was, understandably, uncomfortable with my presence. She had never been around a cat like me, having been raised with the comfort of tufted pillows, fish without bones, and clean sand to scratch in. However, she had never felt the thrill of the hunt, the joy of the chase, or the satisfaction of sinking her lovely teeth into something until it was still.

I made her an offer. Come with me, out the open window to the balcony, along the railing, and through the lower porthole to the under-decks. I promised her one night. One night of adventure, of excitement, of fun. After that, I would return her home safely.

All I wanted in return was simply the pleasure of her company.

And perhaps some of that fancy canned tuna.

I leapt to the sill, flicked my tail, winked at her over my shoulder, and then diappeared out the window. It didn't take more than three seconds before she joined me. The city-kitty struggled to balance on the railing. With a rock of the ship and a slip of her paws she nearly went head-over-tail into the abyss, but I caught her by the scruff of her neck with my teeth and pulled her back to safety. Once we'd made it to the understory I wrapped my body around hers until her trembling subsided. She looked so large with all her fur, but beneath it she was small. Fragile. Not built for a life below the upper decks. But she was here, with me, her escort, and I wasn't about to give her anything other than the time of her life.

We spent the night together, living the sort of life most cats only dream of. That ship was our play ground, and everyone else was merely a guest upon it. When I saw her catch her first rat, watched her eyes glitter to life as the rats' eyes faded, it was then that I knew.

I was falling in love with her.

She looked up from her kill, with her perfect white fur stained in blood, dirt, and muck, and her pale blue eyes met mine... She was falling in love with me, too.

I wished the night would never end. If only we could live forever, in those moments, where it was just the two of us with the world at our paws, pretending we didn't come from different worlds and didn't need to return to them.

Dawn broke and, as promised, I walked her back to her room. She scratched upon the door, and I watched from afar as her two-legger, scolding and crying, picked her up and took her back inside. Before the door could close, she meowed to me, breathless, to meet her at midnight by her open window.

The night could not come fast enough. The salty sea did not compare to the taste of her soft, white fur. Despite my full belly, my insides ached, yearning for her touch. The rocking of the sea could not lull me into a dream more beautiful than the reality of being by her side.

Finally, it was night. The sky was clear. The waters still. The universe wanted us to be together again.

Until it didn't.

A crash sounded, followed by a deafening crack. I felt the mighty Titanic shudder, creak, and groan. Curiosity having always been my weakness, I went towards the sound. I could hear the water coming in, slowly at first, but growing faster by the minute. I knew immediately we were all in grave danger. The two-leggers, however, did not. It took nearly an hour before they were scrambling to attention. It took me nearly as long to find my way to her window, dodging the panicked boots of the two-leggers as I made my way from one end of the ship to the other. Her window was open, as promised, but she was nowhere in sight.

I fled her padded room and followed the two-leggers to the top decks. The Titanic was now tilting, groaning, straining to stay afloat out there in the dark abyss of nothing but ice and cold. I searched for my love's frilly pet, but she was one of many and I could not easily tell them apart. They all smelled of fear; it was overwhelming, clogging my senses, blinding my nose.

I'd nearly given up by the time the Titanic was sinking in earnest. The whole thing had broken in half and was sliding into the depths, seranaded by the screams of the lives preparing to be snuffed out by an indifferent sea. Then I heard the meow of a beautuful voice, and returned a meow of my own. She meowed again, closer. I meowed back, again and again, until we were together at last, her long white fur against my short grey.

She followed me to higher ground, clawing our way from place to place, until I found a rope. Not quite a ratline, but close enough; though this would not lead to the safety of solid ground, but merely to a few extra minutes of life. Every second was worth it. For her. Extending my claws, I clung to the rope with the skills only a lifetime of practice could have prepared me for. I climbed higher and higher, and she... she did not.

She mewled for me, crying out, slipping on the rope, her pale eyes reflecting only the blackness of the midnight sky. I crept back towards her and reached down with my mouth for the scruff of her neck, just as I had done the night we'd met and fallen in love.

I missed.

She fell down, down, down, into the sea. I cried after her, but it was no use. She was gone. My soul mirrored the Titanic— empty and broken. I continued climbing only because instinct drove me to it.

Finally, when all nine of my lives had run out, my time to meet the water came. I lept from the highest point in the ship into an icy-cold mass grave, welcoming my end.

My end never came. Floating on the water was a door, and I managed to climb aboard it. Mewing, I cried for her, calling only because I had to do something, anything, other than admit to our fates.

Then I heard it.

Soft, faint, barely there. Reaching into the icy waters with my paws I paddled. I paddled and paddled and paddled, my paws frozen through and through, feeling nothing other than the tiny glimmer of hope that somewhere out there in the bleak darkness, my love was waiting for me.

Just when I thought I had gone mad, that her mewing was merely an apparition, I found her. She was clinging a corpse, tiny and wreched, soaked and barely alive at all. But she was alive. I pulled her onto the floating door and snuggled her close. There was more than enough room for both of us. We kept one another alive with what meagre warmth was left in our bodies until a lifeboat paddled by and we managed to climb into it. A two-legger allowed us to cower behind their soaken stockings until we made it to safety.

That was my last adventure upon the sea; it no longer held any beauty for me, save for the love I found upon it. The Titanic was an end to many things, including my era as a sea-cat. It was also the beginning of a new life.

With her.

In the New World.

...

Like this story? I have more? More specifically, an upcoming novel. You can read more about it here!