Chapter 9 — Cheetah
And thus begins Chapter Nine.
Now, children.
The snake house was behind us.
Quest complete.
Philosophy meter
full.
High
sufficient.
Bro
still Bro.
Nuo
still Bro.
And before us?
The second pilgrimage.
Lions.
The council opens the quest log.
NEW OBJECTIVE:
Find lion.
LOCATION:
Unknown.
NAVIGATION:
Predictably awful.
Excellent.
So we walked.
Did the zoo present us with a clear feline trail immediately?
No.
Of course not.
That would have been far too convenient.
Instead
path.
The council looks around.
One path?
Maybe.
Several?
Also maybe.
Children.
We were stoned enough that this information has been lost to history.
Perhaps there was one perfectly obvious road and we heroically followed the only possible direction.
Perhaps there were six intersections and we selected one through spiritual resonance.
The Archive cannot confirm.
What it can confirm is:
We saw a path.
And followed it.
The council nods.
Vibes navigation survives.
Once again,
animals began appearing.
Enclosures.
Creatures.
Things undoubtedly worthy of attention.
Did we stop?
Barely.
Children.
Tunnel vision had returned.
But lion tunnel vision operated differently from snake tunnel vision.
With snakes,
you must investigate.
Is that snake?
Branch?
Vine?
Leaf?
Extremely committed piece of rope?
One must observe.
Deduce.
Sometimes stare directly at the snake for thirty seconds before finally seeing the snake.
Lions?
No.
Children.
Nobody stands before a lion and asks:
“Hmm.
Is that possibly shrubbery?”
You know.
It is a fucking lion.
Large.
Cat.
Mane, perhaps.
Face designed to remind mammals where they sit in the food chain.
Recognition instant.
Therefore
we could move quickly.
Enclosure?
No lion.
Next.
Animal?
Not lion.
Continue.
The council looks back at the ignored zoo.
You paid admission to ignore most of it.
I paid admission to do whatever amused me.
We settled this at the aquarium.
Fair.
And so
forward.
No clues.
No lions.
Nothing resembling feline infrastructure.
Until
there.
The council hears celestial music.
Cat.
Not lion.
But
cat.
Large cat.
Children.
Trail acquired.
The first feline had appeared.
We stopped immediately.
Yellowish.
Or orangeish.
Brownish.
Some broad colour somewhere between:
sand,
sunlight,
and nature attempting camouflage.
And
spots.
The council leans forward.
Cheetah?
Maybe.
Leopard?
Could be.
Children.
I know these are different animals.
I am aware of that.
One runs incredibly fast.
One climbs things.
Probably.
There are differences in spots.
Face shape.
Body.
Maybe attitude.
Discovery Channel once taught me all of this.
Time removed the files.
So Bro and I stared.
“Cheetah?”
“Leopard.”
“That looks like a cheetah.”
“No, leopard.”
The council prepares identification materials.
Absolutely not.
Facts could wait.
We had theorising.
We examined the spots.
Did cheetahs have spots like that?
Yes?
Don’t leopards also have spots?
Also yes.
Then what the fuck is the difference?
The council sighs.
Scientific inquiry resumed.
Maybe cheetahs are thinner.
This one looked
cat.
Maybe leopard.
But cheetahs are cats too.
Problem.
Then
panther.
The council braces.
“Isn’t a panther just a cheetah but black?”
One of us proposed.
Children.
I have no idea.
Maybe leopard but black.
Maybe jaguar.
Maybe panther is not even a separate species.
The actual answer could have been written ten feet away.
We did not seek it.
This was not an educational institution anymore.
This was a philosophical zoo.
The council nods reluctantly.
And then,
as had become tradition
mating.
The council groans.
Of course.
Could a cheetah mate with a leopard?
Could a leopard mate with a panther?
If panther is just black cheetah,
does that even count as hybrid?
What would the offspring look like?
Spots?
Black?
Black spots on black?
Invisible spots?
Children.
We had developed an unusual fascination with hybrid animals.
Crocodile plus alligator.
Komodo dragon plus crocodile.
Now
large cats.
Apparently Bro and Nuo had accidentally founded the Department of Cross Species Romantic Possibility.
The council immediately revokes funding.
But this feline was more than philosophical infrastructure.
It was a clue.
Big cat.
Children.
Big cat trail.
If big cats were grouped
lion.
Our biological navigation system had returned.
The council stares.
Not again.
Again.
First reptiles led us to snakes.
Now cats would lead us to lion.
Simple.
The council refuses to call this simple.
We admired the spotted creature.
Cheetah.
Leopard.
Mystery Cat.
Whatever.
Then Bro did something.
The council watches her.
She leaned slightly toward the enclosure.
Looked at the big cat.
And
“Ps ps ps ps.”
Silence.
Children.
The universal cat summoning spell.
The council erupts.
SHE DID NOT.
She did.
A fully grown predator.
Possibly capable of disassembling a human being into several convenient pieces.
And Bro?
Ps ps ps.
Like some neighbourhood kitten had wandered under a parked scooter.
The cat
did nothing.
Of course.
No head turn.
No trot toward her.
No acknowledgement that Bro had invoked the ancient pact between humanity and Felis catus.
Because children
this was not Felis catus.
This was Big Fucking Cat.
Bro tried again.
“Ps ps ps.”
Nothing.
And then
pout.
The council stops.
She pouted?
Yes.
Actual disappointment.
As though the zoo cat had violated social protocol.
Children.
It was adorable.
I looked at her.
And said so.
“Cute.”
Or:
“You’re cute.”
Something simple.
The Archive preserves the sentiment better than the wording.
Bro looked at me.
Perhaps rolled her eyes.
Perhaps smiled.
That part fades.
But the moment survives.
Because there is something objectively delightful about watching a stoned woman attempt to summon a cheetah or leopard using domestic cat noises
and then become personally offended when evolutionary history refuses to cooperate.
The council nods.
Fair.
We stood there a little longer.
Not fifteen minutes.
Not aquarium philosophy duration.
Enough.
Observe.
Theorise.
Fail taxonomy.
Attempt feline diplomacy.
Move.
And crucially
we had a trail now.
The council updates the quest marker.
LION:
Still unfound.
FELINE EVIDENCE:
Confirmed.
BIOLOGICAL NAVIGATION:
REACTIVATED.
Children.
We had found the first cat.
That meant somewhere ahead
more cat.
And eventually?
Lion.
This logic had worked once.
Never question my methods.
The council quietly writes:
Sample size: one.
Still worked.
We moved on.
The spotted feline remained behind.
Perhaps relieved.
Perhaps disappointed that Bro stopped ps ps psing.
Perhaps entirely unaware that two deeply unqualified zoologists had just debated its species,
its potential offspring,
and whether it had secretly been a panther all along.
The council suspects the latter.
And the zoo opened forward again.
Path.
Trees.
Enclosures.
People.
Bro beside me.
Our government anonymity still pristine.
Neither of us had asked a single personal question that mattered to bureaucracy.
But I had now learned something genuinely important about her.
She ps ps pses big cats.
Children.
That tells you more than employment history ever could.
The council laughs.
And so we followed the feline trail.
Where?
Unknown.
How far?
Unknown.
Would there actually be a lion ahead?
Also unknown.
But our confidence had increased.
Because snakes had taught us something.
When you want an animal
and refuse every conventional navigation tool
find something biologically adjacent
and trust the ecosystem.
The council objects.
This is terrible advice.
Children.
For zoo navigation only.
And even there
probably terrible.
Yet here we were.
The lion pilgrimage continued.
Thus concludes Chapter Nine.
The Second Pilgrimage.
The Return Of Tunnel Vision.
The Many Animals Classified As Not Lion.
The First Feline.
The Cheetah Or Leopard.
The Panther Identity Crisis.
The Continued Hybrid Obsession.
The Reactivation Of Biological Navigation.
And
Bro’s Great Feline Summoning Ritual.
“Ps ps ps.”
The cat did not come.
Bro pouted.
I called her cute.
And somewhere ahead
we hoped
the king of the jungle waited.
The council updates the route.
FOLLOW THE CATS.
Children.
Never question my methods.
