The End of Longtails. By Daily Florence

The End of Longtails

By Daily Florence

... Slowly but surely, the sound of meowing cats in the distance fell into earshot. I stopped dead in my tracks and watched as every animal in the street came to a standstill, listening on with ears perked and wide eyes. A cat tiptoed toward me and whispered. ‘Can you hear what they’re saying? You’re a Longtail. I know you can hear better than any animal. Tell me what they’re saying…’ ‘I, um, well, it’s hard to hear, ’ I said.

Then, as if a breeze had somehow swept the crowds and whispered to all that I was a longtail, all of the animals in the street turned to face me. I felt my blood pressure rise rapidly as they shot a desperate look in my direction.

To my right, I spotted a dog with a black marker in his hand, hunched over a blackboard in front of his news stand — his eyes burning a hole in my mind. A Rabbit tiptoed toward me. ‘I can’t hear either, ’ the Rabbit whispered. ‘Come on. I know you know. Tell us. Tell us all. ’ I felt a bead of sweat drip down my forehead as I straightened my ears. ‘Shh. Shh then, ’ I said. ‘I, well, it’s, they’ve found something, something in the.. ’ ‘What is it? For Pete’s sake tell us. What is.. ’ the Rabbit blurted out as he gripped tightly to my waistcoat and shook me with two hands.

‘Shut up. Will everyone just shut up for a moment. ’ I raised my ears and tried again, the faint meows in the distance were getting louder. ‘They’ve found something in the Madmin caves. A body of a human dra…. ’ Before I could so much as fnish my sentence, the tiptoeing cat beside me suddenly screamed at the top of her lungs. ‘They’ve found the body of a human in the Madmin caves. ’ Her voice carried like a sonic boom down the street.

All of a sudden I felt the blood surge to my head as I instinctively turned to my right to see that the dog with the marker pen had already flled in his news board and it now read, “Human Body Found In Madmin Caves”. I gripped my mouth, watching in horror as screams bounced from ear to ear between the commuters in the street. ‘No, ’ I shouted to everyone, as loud as my little Longtail lungs could muster. ‘No, you’ve got this wrong. I didn’t mean that. ’

‘Then what do you mean? said the cat beside me with a tut. ‘You said that, didn’t you? ’ ‘Me. It wasn’t me, ’ I said, pointing back at the loud-mouth cat. ‘You just went and shouted that out. I hadn’t fnished my sent…’ ‘Well then, Mr, I don’t mean what I say, what exactly did you mean then? ’ I gripped my head. ‘Cave drawings. The body of a human drawn in stone. ’

The cat looked me up and down and let out a huff. ‘Then what the hell is wrong with you, lad? Why didn’t you just say that straight off? ’

My stomach churned as I watched the bedlam unfolding around me. Animals were tearing around at speed, wailing in terror, shielding their children and drawing all of their savings out of cash machines. I instinctively looked to my right again. That darn dog with the black marker was hurling papers from his news stand with quite possibly one of the biggest smiles I had ever seen wiped straight across his face — still with the wrong information written on his board.

I battled through the now almost solid crowd that surrounded his news stand and aimed straight for him. ‘That’s the wrong information. Take that down now. ’

Without skipping a beat, the dog turned to me with these enormous, dewy, round, puppy dog eyes and said. ‘Aww, please, just a little longer. I’ve never been so busy. ’

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