Copyright (c) 1995 by Edwin L. Wilson, Jr. All rights reserved. This work of fiction may not be copied by any means into any form without the express written consent of the author. Permission is hereby given for the electronic reproduction of this work for personal entertainment use and not for monetary gain. The author can be reached on the Internet at: katmandu@uga.cc.uga.edu or katmandu@negia.net ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chris coughed, twice, from deep in his throat. The acrid smoke from the joint burned his throat and he coughed again, wishing for some orange juice. A fat teardrop rolled from his cheekbone and landed on the glowing cherry of the joint, extinguishing it with a quick hiss. "Aw, shit." he groaned. Normally he would have raged at his misfortune, throwing whatever was in easy reach until his fury had subsided. Now he merely slumped further, regarding the soggy white cylinder with dismay. Well, he thought, it really doesn't matter. Not any more. He dropped the cigarette and let his hands fall into his lap, where they brushed against the cold steel box there. He sat on the leaf-covered ground of a small wooded clearing, tilting his head back to watch the bare branches claw at the gray sky. Perfect fuckin' day, he thought. Perfect. He hunched forward again, picking at the dead leaves and detritus and slowly pulling them apart. There is no other way, he thought. I'm screwed for school; they don't let you back in after your second academic dismissal. I've got no job and I've got no companionship, I've got no fucking life. I've been nowhere and I'm sure as hell headed nowhere. He picked up one of the small, shiny cylinders scattered amongst the leaves and stared at it, as if it would speak if he concentrated hard enough. It was silent but winked back brass-tinted reflections of the cloudy sky. One end was a truncated cone of tarnished copper; an ugly lump of metal. The other end was stamped with HORNADY .45 AUTO +P. The end of the cone was indented into a deep cup that Chris contemplated before shoving the cartridge into the flat metal box in his lap. He picked up the six other rounds and inserted them into the clip one by one. When he was finished he pressed the heavy magazine against his forehead and screwed his eyes shut. No more hesitation... Now was the moment. He put the magazine in his lap and began reaching for the pistol lying on the ground in front of him... There was an oddly shaped foot behind the pistol. Chris stopped, his hand stretched towards the gun, and stared at the foot. The toes were large and round, and covered with yellow fur. Pearly white, curved claws extended from the ends of the toes and dug into the ground. The rest of the foot was long and raised off the ground, and covered in the same yellow fur... as was the leg attached to the foot, and the torso... Chris leaned back. A cat's face stared down at him. The round ears were tipped in black, but the fur on the end of the short snout formed a white bow-tie shape. The body was human-like, but covered in fine yellow fur. The chest and stomach fur was thicker and white. The eyes were round and yellow, the whiskers bright white against the black sides of the muzzle. "Wow," Chris said. "Mark, I apologize. This stuff really is resin city." The creature squatted and grabbed Chris' arm. Claws extended from black slits in the ends of the thick fingers to lightly prick his skin. "Hey!" he objected, and then paled. "That's right." the thing said. Its voice buzzed. "I'm not a hallucination. I'm real." The creature picked up Chris' father's blued steel pistol and held it in front of Chris' eyes. "You were about to make a mistake with this, I believe." Chris was silent for nearly a minute. His voice, when he found it, was hoarse. "Why do you care?" It released Chris' arm. "Why not?" The creature's gaze was unrelenting. Chris looked at the ground. "Because-" he choked on a sob- "Because I've got nothing to look back on and nothing to look forward to. Because I've got no friends, no future and no talents. Because I'm basically just a waste of space." "What's your name?" Chris looked up, startled. "Uh... Chris." The creature thrust out a hand. "I'm Susanna" it said, pronouncing the name Soo SAH na. Chris gingerly took the hand and shook it. It was surprisingly warm. "You're... a... she?" he asked. "Yes." she said. She hadn't blinked once. "I used to think my life was over, once. I had lost everything, everyone I loved, my family, my village, my life. There didn't seem to be a future for me. Death seemed like my only escape." She stopped and stared at him. Chris found the inspection disturbing but couldn't look away. "Yeah? How old were you?" "Oh, around seventeen. It's hard to remember. It was almost three hundred years ago." "Three.." Now it was Chris' turn to stare. "What... I don't understand." Susanna's arms moved blindingly fast. She grabbed Chris' head and held it still while staring directly into his eyes. She began to speak in a low voice, almost as if she were reciting lines. Chris froze into place, feeling ten small pricks through his hair at the back of his head. Gradually he made out what she was saying, and her voice oozed into his head and coalesced there as visions... He saw a dark man, dressed only in a loincloth, whose features marked him as South American. He felt Susanna's memory make love to the man, felt the pain of childbirth. He watched through her eyes as she gathered firewood and water, cooked food, tended the child. He saw the strange men, dressed in shiny metal, carrying fearful sticks that banged and smoked and flung metal gravel, come from huge boats. He saw much of the village stricken with a strange disease, and those that were left standing were forced to dig silver from the ground for the strange men. He saw the remaining warriors of the village ambush the conquistadors, killing several of them but in the end being slaughtered down to the last man. He saw the soldiers return to destroy the village, killing everyone there. He felt the violent humility of being used in turn by each of the Spaniards, grinning bearded men who moments earlier had crushed the skull of his/her child. He saw him/herself running, bruised and bleeding, from the flaming village into the jungle; running for miles before collapsing. He saw him/herself lie down, intending to die where he/she lay; looking up at the _leon_ that stood over him/her. The golden furred animal had bitten him/her, once, and then left. He felt as her memory relived the change, the terrifying weeks of confusion as she became half-human, half-animal; able to change with ease between the two worlds. He watched as years flashed by, years of living as a puma; mating, rearing normal puma kits, being hunted and hunting prey, watching cubs die at the hands of trappers or mere starvation. He saw her move steadily northward, eventually insinuating herself into the fragile colonial foothold in the Americas. He saw still more death and hardship, lives lost and lives she'd taken; saw wars that started with primitive flintlock rifles and ended in Europe with high explosives. He watched as she roamed across the world, trading clipper ship for steam for airplane. The memories became clearer as she approached the present day, and became more pleasant; although with the wide-grinned barnstorming ride across the countryside on one of the first Indian motorcycles was also the horror of bodies choking the Ganges river. With the freedom of soaring in a glider, silent above the green hills, was the stench of cordite and blood in the Ardennes. With the beauty of a coral reef was the ugliness of a still-born child. He blinked. She was sitting cross-legged now, those huge furred feet stuck oddly out, her head bowed and her eyes closed. He cleared his throat and hastily wiped a tear from his face. "Um." he started, but she remained still. "I... don't understand." She was silent for a few more heartbeats. "I've lived for nearly three hundred years." she said softly, head still bowed. "I've lost more in that time than any human could ever imagine. Death has followed me constantly since the day I was changed. I still remember each child, each kit, that I've birthed and watched die." She raised her head finally, her golden eyes dimmed by a rim of tears. "But I've also seen incredible beauty. I've seen life in every form. I've watched man reach from the Montgolfier brothers to the moon. I've lived a thousand lifetimes and loved every one. "I'm old now. I don't know how long I'll live. But I will not allow Death to take me one second sooner than necessary. My life has been hard, but life _is_ hard. You can't give up on it when it hurts you. You've got to be angry with it, grab it, shake out of it what you want." She stood suddenly, and nudged the pistol with one toe. "That's one way out. You can end it here before you've seen even one millionth of what I've experienced. Or you can go back and start shaking life for all you're worth until you've gotten what you want out of it. It'll fight you but you can fight it back." She gave him one last hard stare, and then dropped to all fours and bounded into the trees; her long heavy tail following silently. Chris sat motionless for over an hour, staring at the gap in the trees she'd disappeared into, fingering the clip in his lap. He stood finally, letting the small box tumble to the ground to clatter against the pistol. He walked, stiffly at first, for his car, leaving the gun to the soft rain. Written 1/11/95, with the help of Ten Years After, _A Space In Time_; Portishead, _Dummy_; and, of course, Coca-Cola.