Cat In An Alien X-Ray

Even the name “Sphinx” is a giveaway of the ancient alien lineage. For, of course, this superior breed of space travelers first descended on the ancient Egyptians when they were living in mud huts.

The sage Grays saw potential in these large, ungainly two-legs and proceeded to give them the secrets to farming and constructing weapons, chariots, and barges, working iron and gold, and the literal height of civilization then, and still a marvel today, the Pyramids.

Many were scribes who cleverly invented and clawed out the hieroglyphs.

No wonder we cats were worshipped and had our own great goddess in the mighty Egyptian pantheon, Bast.

As for the four-fingered “hands” portrayed on one of these film aliens, E.T., one digit is the opposable thumb. Alas, the instructors the ancient aliens left behind—through centuries of understandable but lamentable inbreeding with species near to themselves—lost the opposable thumb, which became the dewclaw. The three remaining “fingers” then gradually separated into four, producing the classic number of shivs I bear (and bare) proudly today.

And, as history forgot the coming of these wise creatures from far out in the galaxy, their descendents were assumed to be mute, mysterious creatures of a lower order, instead of the emperors of the universe they were and are. (Some perspicacious humans actually do treat us to this day with the proper respect and pampering.)

But I state with full confidence, if one of these so-called little gray men were found in an undecomposed state and examined, it would be proved beyond any doubt that there was a cat skeleton in that alien X-ray.

I rest my case.

Very Best Fishes,

Midnight Louie, Esq.

If you’d like information about getting Midnight Louie’s free Scratching Post-Intelligencer newsletter and/or buying his custom T-shirt, contact Carole Nelson Douglas at P.O. Box 331555, Fort Worth, TX 76163-1555 or the Web site at www.carolenelsondouglas.com. E-mail: [email protected].

Tailpiece

Carole Nelson Douglas Goes to the Dogs

Authors often donate character names for charities. Penny and her dog Rens won their names in this book at an auction at Dragon*Con science fiction/fantasy/horror convention in Atlanta, where thousands of readers and media fans congregate every Labor Day weekend.

Rens is really a mini husky Chihuahua, and here is a photo of him. I know Louie will sniff at a dog photo in his book.

Louie’s long-standing feline chauvinism has forced me to mount a defense of dogs.

Not only have they won standing as “man’s best friend,” but they have been a woman’s best friend too. Since I wrote my first novel about fifty-nine novels back, I’ve wanted to be sure that animal companions were in the picture.

Of course, if you put an element into a story, it’s going to spring into life and demand a real role. That’s how Boru, an Irish wolfhound, became a hero at the end of my first novel, Amberleigh, and a King Charles spaniel stood in for the entire doomed class of English Cavaliers during their seventeenth-century Civil War in Fair Wind, Fiery Star.