Kitten on the Keys

I suppose that I should introduce myself first.  I’m the famous cat Jaws, the first reanimated non-human animal.  The non-human distinction is important.  The Hanley family, starting with patriarch Duke who reanimated a basketball player once and his wife twice, and his son David who reanimated his girlfriend Wendy twice, used the procedure with humans first, before striking gold with me.

I say striking gold, because he makes a lot of money bringing rich people’s deceased pets back to life.  I don’t want to disparage my original person Wendy too much, because we always got along, but David’s munificent animal reanimation practice has brought her much closer to him.

If you followed the biggest story of last year – me – you may be wondering if I’m really writing this.  According to the news, reanimated pets can only communicate by crude sign language.  What you didn’t know is that David and Wendy designed and had constructed a cat-friendly keyboard.  There is no more need for me to go through the torturous process of signing, then having someone type up my words.  You are getting the unfiltered Jaws.

About that name.  David called me Jaws because, so he claims, I was unmitigated evil before being resurrected.  That’s just one opinion.  Wendy says that I always have been and always will be a real doll.  Anyway, I’m not the cat that I used to be.  I still have some memories from before, but it is all a bit hazy, whereas my subsequent memory is now quite good.  Maybe I should be Adam since I’m the first of my kind.

One of the controversies that I’d like to clear up is the question of inter cat communication.  So far it is not too advanced.  We post-deaths can deal with less privileged cats much like people can.  All cats want some attention, some solitude and food all the time.  We aren’t very good at supplying food to our less advantaged brethren, but we can tell when they want comfort and when to be left alone.

I’d like to tell you about my new and improved sex life, but I was left holding the (empty) bag.  Cats that I’ve signed with that were brought back to life before neutering say their sex lives are much better now.  Rather than mindlessly pursuing the big bang, they can now engineer seduction much like their humans.  In our natural state our species is rather sadomasochistic in many ways.  Life may be less exciting in our second lives, but it is much healthier.

I’ve been telling you what I do know.  Something that I don’t know is whether the legend or myth of human – cat telepathy, started by the alleged use of cats as familiars for witches and then reinforced by the book “Cats’ Religion” has any validity or not.  The second life cats that I’ve signed with say that they know nothing about it and I can’t find any humans to comment.

Now that the science of reanimation is firmly established, what does the future hold?  The Luddites see Frankenstein monsters ravaging the countryside, despite that the worst that has happened was an attempted murder and a bad gambling habit.  Anyway, people and animals can be reanimated until it is done right.  Rich humans want to overturn the anti-reanimation act.  Those that can’t afford it or are zero population growth fanatics are still opposed.

Non-human animal reanimation was never illegal, so that is not an issue.  The question now is do we get personhood along with primates, elephants and dolphins?  I think that it will happen, but I may not be around for that joyous occasion.  One problem is that whenever the commission tests us, some joker uses a laser light to make fools of us.  Even if I’m not around, there will be voting rights for second life pets, you can bet on it.  Cat as president?  Why not, we know better than to go to war in Asia and with enough catnip we are very pacifistic.  Anyway, after 2016 all presidents have been female humans as a reaction to some horrible male human presidents before that year.  It is cats’ turn.”