Jabba woke up screaming, another one of her nightmares.

"Hamsters," she sobbed, "Thousands of them. Combat hamsters, built like Rambo, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, machine guns and little ammunition belts on their shoulders, medieval armor and broadswords, little hamster chests bulging with muscles. AND THEY WERE COMING FOR ME! It was horrible, just horrible. I clawed one, bit another, but they kept coming..."

Another one of her hamster nightmares.

I petted her and scratched behind her ears, but it was wearing on her, you could tell by the bags under her eyes, the way her paws shook as she poured herself another gin.

"When is it going to end?" she mewed. "It wasn't my fault, I thought it was a bleach blond mouse, or some kind of strange mole. I didn't know it was a pet. How could I have known? Nobody told me! Hamster, mouse, you can barely tell the difference when they shoot across the floor like that. I was just going on my instincts, like any self-respecting cat. I didn't know. Why is god punishing me like this?"

She emptied her glass of gin and reached for the bottle. I stopped her and took her paw in mine. In my hand, I mean. "Listen, baby, this stuff isn't going to help things. It's in the past, kiddo. You got to learn to put it behind you."

She shook her head and looked out the window at the night. I knew that her fear-wracked mind was filling the streets out there with revenge-crazed hamsters, the pets of a thousand sweet-faced, sleeping kids. Bloodthirsty hamsters, armed with daggers and poisoned tunafish, waiting for their chance at her.

"Get some sleep, baby," I said. I rubbed her scruff, the way she liked, and she curled up on her side, licked a drop of gin off a paw, drifted off. Poor kid.

She was something else, that Jabba cat. A Blue and White British Shorthair, a real classy dame. It was a shame to see a feline driven to drink like that. But it was out of my hands. I had taken out a hamster myself once, an accident, sure, but I knew how the guilt could gnaw at you.

Copyright © Paul F. Hoff
January 17, 1999