Let’s face it. Cats rule the internet. For all we know, they invented the web as a way to , and that’s why cats lurk everywhere you turn online, watching, waiting to pounce and smother you in LOLz.
Andrew Nichols’ story “They Were the New Cats” over at , the online journal edited by (formerly of Mississippi Review), is, as you might expect, about cats:
They were the new cats. They were Cats of Great Authority. Driving cars around the country, supervising lane closures and intersection full-stops, chastening speeding scofflaws. Why cats? Because they were expendable. Because they were already some kind of cops. Cats behind billboards. The reason they hadn’t liked car trips before was, meow meow. Who could interpret that? They didn’t steer, they “initiated in-car metrics.” They were the Bold and New and Brave Cats. An observant being was required. A being paid in tuna. My mother with her chin twisted to one side like Edward Norton in that movie said Jesus Christ on a hot dog bun now she could die, she could die because now she’d seen everything.
But the piece encompasses so much more. It tackles progress, technology, the feeling that the world is zooming by at 120 mph in a car driven by a pretty adorable tabby.
It’s speculative cat fiction. It’s an entirely new genre. It’s one of the best things we’ve read this week. Seriously.
