Cat In An Alien X-Ray

“Aw, come on, Ma. I am a rational dude. Trust me. The Strip is riddled by gimmicky dancing lights all over the place.”

“This occurred above this deserted place only. But that is not all.”

I sigh and wait.

“There was a mother ship. A huge, hovering flying thing just above the ground that emitted a blinding death ray.”

“A death ray. Holy Flash Gordon, Ma! If you had ever been domesticated and moved indoors to watch movies from all eras on television, you would know that death rays are a corny invention of special effects technicians. FX, the humans call it for short. Special effects. A trick. An illusion. A delusion.

“What you saw was probably some advertising gimmick … maybe helium balloons loosed on an unsuspecting public. Right out in front of the Paris is this huge illuminated balloon and gondola. This stuff is all pure Las Vegas hype.”

“Las Vegas is not so pure from what I have heard,” she says with a sniff.

“So did anybody see this phenomenon? I mean somebody with an opposable thumb to punch in 911 on a cell phone.”

“We go where we will not be seen. You know that is our kind’s best defense, not to be seen. We did not do leaping lion but crouching tiger. We went belly-down to play rock and shadow. The security lights are dim here.”

“They are indeed rather puny compared to the fireworks of the Strip and Downtown all around,” I note.

“And anyway, the UFOs drove the men off, leaving behind their burden. We thought it might be traps to transport us to the mother ship, but we were too smart to fall for that trick.”

“Men? Burden? That could have been … gym bags or something. There must be a twenty-four Hour Fitness club somewhere around here. I know life on the street makes one wary, but this all sounds like nonsense.”

“Nonsense, all right. I sent Pitch and Blackula to sniff out the leavings after the men had fled. It was no burden, it was just very dead.”

“Those gym bags can smell like death warmed over, believe me. I have hung out with humans way more than you ferals.”

“The leaving was also about six feet long and most unfit, with a large pouch like you.”

“Leave my body type out of this discussion. Let me get this straight. You saw grown men toting a corpse? They dropped it like a sack of potatoes and ran?”

Usually corpse-toters are not the fleeing type, much less the leaving-in-plain-sight types.