The Noise in the City (standard:fantasy, 901 words)
Author: Iwakurasan	Added: Apr 19 2004	Views/Reads: 3192/2065	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A short bit of strangeness

The Noise in the City 

I hate this hour of the night. All the lights have gone out and you can
only hear the sound of hardcore techno from the clubs that litter the 
edge of every street. It's a noise you just can't escape. Always there, 
coloring the nightlife of the city. 

I'm thinking about last night, because I can't get it out of my head. 

There are all these cats in the city. You should know that. I mean there
are a lot them, and you can't go anywhere without seeing them. I'm 
scared of them, because when I was a kid my mom told me that if you 
look into a cat's eyes, you can see the future...but only a few people 
can do it. I was scared for a long time, and when I was thirteen years 
old I tried it, scared of what I'd see. But I didn't see anything. 

I wish that I had, and yet I'm glad that I didn't. I've seen the people
who talk with cats, I've seen what happens to them. But I hate cats 
now. I hate them because I know that they know things that they won't 
tell me. 

I'm thinking about last night now, because last night I met someone who
was different. I'd never seen him before. I know he's not part of this 
city, but at the same time it feels like he is, part of the cats and 
the future and the hardcore techno. That's what this city reeks of. You 
can feel it every day and every night. 

I don't know where he is now. All I can tell you is about last night. 

I was walking down this street. This same street that I'm on now, only
it was a lot louder. You could hear the music from the clubs, all the 
time, crashing in to the streets, you could feel the heavy beat in your 
steps. I can't forget that. I was walking past a club and wondering why 
it was so loud. Then I looked up and he was there. 

You know, it's strange. I thought he was a cat at first. Isn't that
strange? I really did. But I looked and I saw that it was a man 
standing in the shadow of the club's doorway. It seemed like the music 
was coming from him. 

So, I asked him if there had been a cat there. He looked at me for a
moment like he knew exactly what I was talking about but didn't want to 
tell me anything. 

"No," he said. "No cat. Just me." 

"Oh." I said. Then I looked at the club and I told him that the music
wasn't usually this loud. He nodded as if he knew, again, what I was 
talking about. I thought he must have known what I was talking about 
more than I did. 

"I don't know why it's so loud tonight," I said. "Hey. What are you
doing here?" 

"Just listening," he said. 

"To what? To the music?" I couldn't understand that, because I hated the
music. It was like all I'd heard ever since I was a kid was the 
hardcore techno and now I hated it. 

"Yes," he said. "To the music. And other things." 

The way he said it made me look at him, trying to figure out just what
he meant from his face. But it was like looking at his face just made 
it worse. 

"So," I said. "What other things?" 

And he just looked at me as if he was summing me up and wondering if he
should tell me, if I could handle it. 

"I'm listening," he said, "to the future. Can't you hear it?" 

I looked around then, looking for one of those damned cats, and then I
realized that I was looking at one, standing in front of me, I could 


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