Consider This, Patriots: Your 4th of July Fireworks is My Cat's 9/11
It was another calm night in the Bush apartment. I, Georgina, had passed out on the couch after a long day of day drinking and day puking. The cats, Uno and Jet Fuel, had finished their evening commute to their respective cat trees where they were to monitor the going ons outside the windows all night, as they do any other day. But then, it hit. A bright explosion followed by a sound identifiable to me as either a gunshot or a firework, but identifiable to my cats as what it probably sounded like when the first United plane hit the first tower. Uno, completely shaken by what could possibly be a repeat of the most deadly terror attack in America, leapt from her unanchored tower with a force that resulted in it collapsing to the ground with a thunderous, earth shaking thud. Tower Uno had fallen.
Uno frantically zipped around the apartment, blowing out several candles forgotten by the napping, hungover, dehydrated me. The billows of smoke awaited me once my body and brain finally registered that I bore some responsibility over the commotion in the living room. I awoke to the devastation of Uno's cat tree felled, and through the smoke, saw her perched upon her brother Jet Fuel's cat tree. Jet Fuel was cowering in his little cotton tent hand made by an Etsy merchant. A closer firework was let off, the buzz of the initial ascent immediately triggered airplane ears in both cats. As it burst into its final fury, it released a sound so terrible, Jet Fuel pissed all over the floor of the tent. Uno forced herself off her brother's tree and a second tower crumbled.
A group of people passed by the windows the cats had grown to hate, "USA USA USA" they chanted. I sequestered the cats into the bathroom. A third firework shatters the peace, and the two cats go Tasmanian Devil mode. Uno took everything on the shelving including the shelves down, and Jet Fuel shattered the sink and the toilet. The bathroom, not dependent on any outside walls, felt like a safe space for the cats, one that was more impenetrable to the sounds outside given its location. But to the cats, the compartment of defense had to be taken down as well.
The damage is unimaginable. Jet Fuel's piss had melted the dye of the cotton tent to stain the floor beneath it, Jet Fuel's piss would not have melted the steel litter box in such a way. Two towers have fallen, and while I have blacked out during the day, the mess I had to clean up while nursing a vicious hangover will never be forgotten. The spirit of the cats will recover, but the stained floor will serve as a reminder of ground 0 to what was my cat's 9/11, caused by you local so called patriots.