Young Writers Society

And then there was the predicament of the missing cats and the hungry dogs. But something felt very repetitive about the whole thing. No patterns, just repetitive. As I forced myself to peer under the lounge to leave reassuring smears of warm tar on the minds of the homemaker, I couldn’t help but feel nauseated by the smell of dog.

“It was my moonlight”. As a generous current, in the still and hot morning, decided to bring to my ears the first lines of a conversation with potential, I tried to not raise my eyebrows or laugh out loud. This was a case fit for werewolves it would seem.

“Jody didn’t leave the Luna-maker back for me, it was always mine. She was just pretending as though she was being generous in what she left behind for me.” Reberta kept realing off her umm’s and ha’s when I knew she wanted to get right into a whole judge-judy-rant about the more important things in the world and how if only we all took the law into our own hands, the world would be such a better place. She had been talking like that ever since she returned from maturity leave. Oh, and I had a feeling Reberta wasn’t interested in what a Luna maker was either.

“Hmm, umm, well you do realise we cant do anything about the cats just yet. We could probably buy a bag of dog food for you before we leave town.”

“No that won’t be necessary. But thank you. If you people, at the centre of intelligence for things like this were quick to find out what is going on, I would really appreciate it.” I dont know why, but i always seemed to get reverse-inside-out goosebumps into my body everytime i heard a lesbian being polite.

My legs were starting to hurt and I felt inclined to say something mildly authoritative and not completely clueless “ yeah, we’re working on it with all the resources we have.” Ok so maybe with a little more effort I could have sounded more convincing, but the truth was the centre really didn’t have many resources for anything. They were barely paying the staff they have retained at the centre, and both Reberta and I knew they were going to be some down sizing pretty soon.

As I peered into her eyes, I realised she would have made quite a pretty girl if it weren’t for the butch haircut. Not that I wouldn’t date her the way she looked right now if she were straight. But she seemed to get irritated and angry. It may have been her unconscious radar system picking up signals and warning her that she was being judged, or maybe its just the whole lesbian self defence coming through, whatever it was, she wanted answers now.

“ Look Ms. Kempsie, I will be honest with you, we just don’t have the kind of resources as we did back in 2005, and to be honest we don’t know what to believe. The disappearance of the cats may not have anything to do with the high rates of lesbian break-ups. And the missing pet food? I mean it just seems too strange for it all to be related don’t you think?”

All the hairs on her head seemed to stand on end, and she looked like a angry little boy. “ I don’t care what you think Mr. What-ever your name is. I want my cats back, that whore can eat shit and die for all I care.”

In a world that turned on the TV on Sunday mornings, instead of going to church, explaining how correlations were a weak argument seemed futile.

As we stepped out of Ms. Kempsie’s house, Reberta and I breathed out heaving sighs, almost as though we both didn’t want to know what that house would be like with the other lesbian and the cats.

“I can’t believe your leaving me with this trash, Billy” I should have never told her not to call me Billy.

“ So, seeing that you can afford to go on a holiday, do you think you could spare a bucks to buy your beloved partner lunch?”

Little did she know I had spent all the money I had saved on the tickets, leaving me with little to actually spend once I get to Sumar Yedum.

“Reberta, you scab. Didn’t you just get paid yesterday?”

“Yeah, but then I went and paid a bill to ease my insecurities. They call it insurance. I should have never gotten pregnant”

I could see that the man that knocked her up had pushed his argument convincingly enough to make her feel as though it was her fault.

“Hey don’t worry about it. You were 50, single, and really needed to get laid that night. We all fuck up, and if every time I fucked I ended up with something as beautiful as a child, well I would be quite happy actually.”

“Whatever Oprah. You paying for lunch?”

I was tired and hungry and thought I could use some company on the sushi train.

As we walked in I was surprised to see a Japanese man in the corner making up the rolls. He was straight Japanese, not half-cast, and I wondered what he might have been thinking, while he sat in the large suffocating shipping container, twenty years too late on the American dream. Anyway, the guy wasn’t putting too much effort to add to the ambiance of the place.

The music sounded like Japanese AC/DC.

Reberta held up a piece of sushi between her sticks. “Chicken, bacon and onion. Is there nothing sacred any more? Does everything have to taste like mcdonalds?”

And before she put it in her mouth. “yeekah! Is that a fucking hair?” And there it was, a nice long black hair. “ Oh my god, that’s gross, oh god, this is not some weird sushi is it? That’s it, Im bringing this place down!”

I am usually pretty enthusiastic about discouraging Reberta from using her batch in times like these. But I was tired, and thought if would be interesting to see her doing this in some place other than starbucks.

She walked straight into the back. The Japanese man began to scream. And as I went for my gun, Reberta came back out, walking backwards, being pushed out by a butch lesbian telling her that the back was for staff only.

Oh boy, here it comes. You go girl. Who needs a warrant when you have a shinny batch and a temper? But Reberta was menstrual and was really working up a temper. Dealing with another difficult lesbian that morning probably didn’t help the cause either. Shit, now I had to get up and get into this.

“Excuse me, do you have a warrant, please this is for a good cause…”

Hrmm, what did she say? Reberta was fuming and said something out of context about the pains of being labour. And as she pushed through and stepped into the back, I could already see two big piles of paper work on my desk requiring some creative writing to explain this.

“Holy fuck. Fuck this is so fucking gross. And we fucking eat here all the time.”

It was like someone was poking their fingers onto my eyes, pushing my eye balls back with far too much force. And although ive been to china town to watch people eat chickens feet, watching a half skinned cat hanging from the ceiling seemed to make my stomach’s eyes roll over, in anticipation of being unnecessarily stirred.

I had to say something to communicate my disbelief. “ Your not putting cats in those rolls are you?”

“Well, no one can tell. It kinda tastes like chicken.”

I turned around to look at her to show my disapproval of her sense of humour. And then I realised that there was a group of Japanese women, behind the refrigerator, staying fearful silent. They were wearing a t-shirt that said LFR.

“What the fuck is going on here” Reberta in her best cop voice.

“And what is LFR?” I added, tactfully.

Coming out of the sushi place, Reberta began to flick through her mini diary looking for numbers. Lesbians for Refugees, was apparently (to my shocking surprise), running short of funds. And it seemed that they still wanted to persist with their relief efforts to sushi restaurants. And what better plan than to steal cats (rather than spend far too much money buying real meat) and serve em up at sushi bars. Oh, and Reberta didn’t forget to tell Jody that the Luna maker was always never hers. I tired to say something semi intelligent in Japanese as I left, but it only made the Japanese women scream in synchrony.

“Fucking cats in sushi. I should have arrested them right there. Ok, Immigration, 3367 3345” Reberta was ready to cough up a fur ball.

“I suppose I will ring animal control. Hey, did you notice that big bag of dog food in the corner next to that man making the rolls?”

As Reberta threw up straight onto my crotch, I decided to not pass my witty comment on how this job was getting easier by the minute.