“Any coward can hide behind something bigger,” says Catarin Phlap in a calm voice that is rather detached from her sitting upon a soulless silverback shell observing a raging rhinoceros roaring within inches of her existence.
“Who are you calling a coward?” snarls Lemuel Dritch, now leaning the weight of the furthermost tip of a horn on Catarin’s black-furred chest, so the feline has to extend her claws into her seat not to fall over.
“I would take the more than educated guess that only a pathetic poltroon would have the ear to hear the sear,” she says while studying the intrusive keratin growth as were it a speck of spittle from an Etruscan shrew.
“Yes, I mean you,” Catarin scoffs just before the furrows on Dritch’s forehead become deep enough to hold a herd of Herefords.
“I am not a coward,” says rhino Dritch.
“Well, the mere fact that you make that announcement proves quite the opposite,” Catarin says with a nonchalance that only a cat can enunciate. “But I’ll refer you another round of refuting your remark. Snap yourself into something small and harmless and show me you have the guts to come at me then.”
Any clearheaded creature would have paused and perceived that she was being played and put in peril at this point in the conversation. But Lemuel Dritch is neither clearheaded nor creature. He is what happens when evil has been passed down from generation to generation, from father to son, from low to lower, from arrogance to conceit, with each passing adding another turn of degeneracy and perversion until its concentration is so powerful it cannot help but rise to every bait. This is no exception.
Dritch snaps himself into a minuscule field mouse and storms toward Catarin with a for him now booming battle cry. Catarin, in turn, sits quiet and waits for him to reach her, bats him with her right front paw, catches him and pins him down with the left, and proceeds to eat and swallow him. Then she cleans her paws and whiskers, and after contemplating the credulity of core-twisted coves and no-good narcissistic nincompoops, she gets up and leaves the villa the same way she came in.
On the way, though, Catarin’s intestines instigate an insurrection. Bile flows up where it should stay down—her stomach bucks and bickers in every which way and unway. What should be solid becomes fluid and what should be cleansing seems to corrode her inner pipes. Catarin has to stop at the side of the road and answer erupting questions from the inside:
“Did you swallow the evil?” inquires the inside.
“No, it was just a field mouse,” Catarin says.
“It feels like you swallowed the evil?” the inside says.
“No, it was just a field mouse,” Catarin says.
“Are you sure you didn’t swallow the evil?” the inside asks.
“No, it was just a field mouse,” Catarin says.
“What happens when you swallow the evil?” the inside wants to know.
“It was just a field mouse,” Catarin maintains.
“Are you even supposed to swallow the evil?” the inside says.
“No, it was just a field mouse,” Catarin says.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to swallow the evil,” the inside comments.
“It was just a field mouse,” Catarin sighs.
The seventh time the inside asks,
“Are you going to keep the evil here on the inside?”
“Yes, I have to keep the evil inside,” Catarin answers despite all the cloying clammy clues to the contrary. “If I let it back out, my last life will be leaving.”
“But your last life has already left,” the inside argues.