Where Did It Go?

A short story

Image by Bill Adler

“I don’t care that it works, it’s wrong!” Kira stomped her foot and surveyed the kitchen. She scrunched her eyes and squeezed her lips together. “I don’t like it. It’s a miracle that the downstairs neighbors haven’t complained.”

Noah grinned broadly. “It doesn’t go to the downstairs neighbors. I mean, originally I thought it did, and I worried about that big time. But after a day, when they didn’t bang on our door, I knew it must go somewhere else. Does that make sense to you, Kira? If the—um—used kitty litter were falling through our kitchen floor into the Davidson’s kitchen below, don’t you think they’d be here in a heartbeat? That’s what I would do. You would, too. Anyone would scream murder if kitty sands fell from their ceiling. But there’s no hole in the floor and no hole in the litter box.”

“What’s happening to the litter after the purring princess uses it, then?” Kira folded her arms over her chest. “You do not see reality, Noah, because you don’t want to see. You don’t like scooping pee and poop, so you pretend that the cat’s waste vanishes into thin air, which it doesn’t. It must go downstairs. I’m sure if I looked hard enough, I’d find little trap doors or something at the bottom of the litter box and kitchen floor. As for why the Davidsons haven’t complained, they are saving their anger and will unleash it along with a shotgun blast soon.”

Thesaurus, their six-year-old Norwegian forest cat, rubbed against Kira’s leg, then Noah’s. She lapped her water bowl and jumped on the refrigerator, from where she monitored the argument below. 

Lights from the apartment building across the street twinkled like starlight against their kitchen window as New York City transitioned from day to night. 

“Look, all I can tell you is that the soiled litter goes somewhere and that somewhere isn’t the Davidsons. Though they would deserve it if it did. Their twins must have the loudest voices in the world, and why do they scream at four o’clock every morning?”

“Those things have nothing to do with each other.”

“I’m just saying that if the kitty litter is pouring into their apartment, maybe the gods are giving us due karma.”

Kira folded her arms tighter.

“But it’s not spilling into the apartment below. Besides, the litter only disappears when the box is exactly three inches to the left and two inches in front of the fridge. If it’s in any other spot, I have to scoop it by hand.”

Kira narrowed her eyes. “You’re such a liar.”

Noah turned toward the kitchen island, fished through a drawer, and retrieved a Nespresso capsule.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to make an espresso.”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not changing the subject. I’m making an espresso.”

“You are—”

Their phones shrieked like train whistles. Kira and Noah slapped their hands over their ears and held them there for thirty seconds until the harsh warbling stopped. 

Noah fished his phone out of his pocket, his jaw dropping as he read the message on the screen. “Emergency alert. It’s, it’s….” His hands shook, and his vocal cords froze. 

Kira looked at her phone and finished Noah’s sentence. “An alien spacecraft. Oh my god. And it’s over New York City.” She dashed to the window, and as she opened it, Kira said, “We’ll finish this discussion later.”

“If there is a later,” Noah replied, still staring at the terrifying alert on his phone: Alien spaceship over NYC. Stay indoors and keep away from windows. Remain calm.

Kira stuck her head out, craning her neck.

A gold and red craft about the size of a jumbo jet and shaped like a blimp with two stubby fins on each side and four silvery aft tubular protrusions hovered overhead. 

“I don’t think you should do that, babe. We should close the window and hide in the bathroom until this is sorted out.”

As if taking a cue, Thesaurus leaped off the fridge, meowed, sprinted to the living room, and hid under the sofa. 

A preternaturally large shadow a thousand times bigger than the spacecraft stretched from Carl Schurz Park on the east side of Manhattan to the Jersey side of the Hudson and from Wall Street to the George Washington Bridge. The air chilled. Squirrels cowered in their trees, and pigeons flocked to safety in the outer boroughs. 

A zipper-like opening shimmered blue underneath the vast ship. New York glowed ultraviolet. The zipper cascaded open, and a whooshing echoed off Manhattan’s skyscrapers, which shook as if in an earthquake. Windows throughout the city shattered, and car alarms ignited. The few people left on the street dashed into the nearest buildings. 

When the zipper fully opened, cat litter rained out, a downpour of white, gray, yellow, and brown pellets and clumps. Old, sour waste filled the air around their apartment.

Noah grabbed Kira’s arm, yanking her back before the deluge struck their building. He slammed the window shut. 

Noah thought, Now we know where the kitty litter went, and they are angry.

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If you enjoyed this story, I think you’ll also like my story, The Big Cheese.

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