Just finished my play for today “Woman With The Cats.” When I started it, I was thinking it’d be a fun piece to submit for All Terrain Theater’s show coming up this April, Women in Solidarity with Cats, but it took a strange turn, and I don’t know anymore. Curious? Read on, but know that I didn’t check for typos and that it’s probably disturbing.

Woman With The Cats, a monologue

By Rachel Bublitz

FALINE is on stage.

FALINE

My name means “like a cat.” I have eight cats. Don’t even ask me how that happened. I just blinked one day and I was the cat lady. A friend had given me a kitten for a birthday one year, I named him Gilbert. I know, not very clever, my naming skills have improved exponentially since than. And for years it was just the two of us, Gilbert and me. Then I was walking home from work and I heard this heart wrenching noise, for some reason I followed it, and I came upon a boy. He was sitting in an alley with a stray cat and it’s kittens. There were three kittens, he’d killed one of them already, he was working on number two when I showed up. He was… God, he couldn’t have been older than nine years old, I will never understand why he… That doesn’t matter, that’s how I got cat’s two and three. I called the police, when they came they told me that the cats would most likely be euthanized. I tried to hold on to the momma cat, but she was two wild didn’t last long. (Pause) I’m getting to that, but you have to understand. I can’t just start where you want me to start, that’s not where it began. All of this started with my cats. My eight cats. If I don’t go back all the way you’ll just write me off as some lunatic cat lady, that’s not me. Yes I have a lot of cats. (Pause) I don’t know, what would you consider an appropriate amount of cats to have? And why is it your business how many cats I have? Why does the police have a say? (Pause) It’s unfortunate that he’s dead, I don’t know if I’d say I was sorry. Do you know what he did? Do you? He was luring cats to his yard and killing them. (Pause) Evidence? Go to his house and look around yourself. I never stepped foot in his house, for the record. (Pause) You don’t believe me, do you? I’ve never killed anyone, it’s not in me. I didn’t even hit that boy who I caught killing kittens. I took the animals away from him, restrained him, and called the police. (Pause) Check that out all you want. I didn’t kill anybody. (Pause) That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! It’s the cats! I’ve… Well, look, this wasn’t intentional. I wasn’t trying to teach them to kill people, I just wanted them to know how to defend themselves. They have the right to live, just like any of us. And there are people out there, sick people who just like to hurt things for the fun of it. I didn’t think that they’d gang up on someone like that. I didn’t know. I swear, I have no idea. I didn’t even mean to have so many cats! I was telling you, or trying to tell you. I’d been given Gilbert, then I rescued Bob and Scratchy… A friend of mine moved across the country and couldn’t take his cat, so I took him in, Velcro… Then there’s (Pause) Yes I think it is important that you know where they all come from. Because I didn’t try to get any of my cats. They came to me! And yes, I had a lot… Last year… It was last year that he, the deceased, moved in to my block. Six weeks after that I opened my front door to find Gilbert dead on my welcome rug. It was him. Why didn’t anyone investigate Gilbert’s death? I called you, the police, the ones who serve and protect. No one cared. You filed away some report and went back to your real crime. I had to protect my family, my children. I don’t care how it sounds, I love them like they were my children and you didn’t protect them! I just worked out a few tricks with them… And slowly it became… It was self defence, what they did. I am confidant that they wouldn’t have attacked unprovoked. If you ask me, he got what he had coming to him. (Pause) What do you mean that’s it? No, wait, you think I’m crazy! You have to let me tell it all to you again, you have to understand. This isn’t my fault, it’s not their faults. They have the right to protect themselves. (Pause) What will happen to them while we work this out? (Pause) No! You can’t do that! (Pause) I don’t care what your policy is, I want a lawyer, I want a lawyer! Help, help me! Don’t kill my babies, nooooooooooo!