Ellen Datlow - Tails of Wonder and Imagination

“You know that if you give a wrong answer then I must begin by strangling you ,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Do you think you are so much cleverer than the rest of London?”

“No, indeed! I don’t think I am clever at all. But I know you, Sphinx, and perhaps that will help.”

“Very well.”

My heart thumped like anything. She was silent so long that I grew even more nervous and could not help saying, “Is it going to be the one about the creature that goes upon four legs in the morning, and two legs at noon and three legs in the evening, because if so…”

“Certainly not! No, I have it. Ready?”

“Yes, Sphinx dear.”

I thought for a moment.

“Well,” I said. “Someone that is praised to the skies is a hero. And I know how much you hate heroes because they always try to make themselves seem important by exaggerating their exploits. And, by the bye, Sphinx, did I ever tell you, that the French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, is considered to be very heroic? And so I think it is a little contradictory of you, dear, to be doing his work for him. As for the second part, well, a place that gives comfort to travellers is an inn.” I began to cry—I could not help it. “And so put together they make ‘heroine’. And it really is kind of you to say that I am one. And I am really very, very sorry to make you dash yourself into pieces.”

The Sphinx smiled. “Clever girl,” she said, and then gave my face a lick with a pointed pink tongue—which I suppose must be a Sphinx’s kiss.

And then she leapt off the parapet, down, down to Great-Titchfield-Street.

And, oh!, what nonsense that old story of Oedipus is! For the Greek Sphinx has eagle’s wings and how could a winged creature fall to her death?

Up, up she rose again with slow beats. London was sombre and dark beneath her, like a city of graves and mysterious spirits—which sounds rather dreadful, I know, but I was glad of it, for it was the very thing to please her. The last I saw of her she was above the silver ribbon of the Thames turning east towards Greece; and all the red-and-gold glory of the sunset was reflected upon her, the Dweller in High Places.

Dennis Danvers has published seven novels, including New York Times notables Circuit of Heaven and The Watch , and near-future mystery The Bright Spot (writing as Robert Sydney). Recent short fiction appears in Strange Horizons , Orson Scot Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show , Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Space and Time and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

According to the author, “Healing Benjamin” has a dual inspiration: A much-beloved cat named Nyneve, who he had raised from kitten-hood to near nineteen years old. And he wrote this story while facing the inevitable decision of having to put down his aged dog, Alice, who was suffering from serious arthritis at fifteen. Danvers says, “I get deeply attached to animals, and their short life spans can make that painful, but these two animals I count among the most treasured friends in my life. Writing ‘Healing Benjamin’ helped me put that pain out there and deal with it with both laughter and tears.”

There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man .

I got the healing touch when I was 16 years old kneeling over my dying cat Benjamin in my bedroom. He was trying to crawl under the bed to die, but I wouldn’t let him, hauling him out and wrapping my body around him, my forehead pressed against his. He was a year older than me. He’d been there my whole life. I couldn’t imagine life without him. He stopped breathing, his heart stopped, and I prayed for him, though I rarely prayed then, and I never pray now, squeezing him, imprinting my will on him, picturing him raised from the dead, alive and well. I didn’t know what else to do, sobbing, absolutely heartbroken, torturing myself with Joan Baez singing “Old Blue” on the stereo:

Benjamin stirred under my hands, his heart beating hard and steady against my palm. I released him, and he rose and walked to the door, his tail erect. He wanted to go out. An hour later, he wanted back in, and he was hungry. He looked good. He looked real good.

I took him to a vet after his healing to get him checked out. I didn’t take him to his regular vet, Dr. Diderada, who Ben had been going to since he was a kitten, figuring he’d never believe this was the same half-blind stiff-legged neutered tom living on borrowed time he’d basically given up on a week before. I told this new vet Ben was a stray I was adopting, and he guessed him to be about four, in perfect health. All the vets over the years guessed him to be about four, in perfect health. That’s 28 in cat years, not a bad year for me. Benjamin seemingly picked an age he liked and stuck with it. I, meanwhile, kept getting older. I quit taking him to the vet years ago, having exhausted all the convenient ones. Ben was over it, and I couldn’t see spending the money to be reassured semiannually that my cat was immortal. He never even had an ear mite or a flea, as if even the insect world knew he was operating under a special dispensation.

Thirty years later, I was 46, and I still had Benjamin. I’ll do the math for you. He was 47. That’s 329 in cat years. Even if you gave him nine lives, that made each one more than 36 years. No. Benjamin was not a normal cat.

Back when Ben was 17, my parents readily believed Dr. Diderada had resurrected him with some good vitamin supplements. They were wish-upon-a-star, somewhere-over-the-rainbow kind of people, but even they wouldn’t believe a 47-year-old cat. After I left home, I didn’t see them on my own turf very often, but I always lied and said Ben was a new cat. They thought I was odd for naming every cat Benjamin, but they already knew I was odd—I was their son. It helped that Ben was a fairly generic gray tabby with white boots and a nondescript meow. My ex-wife Penny knew Ben for seven years, living with him for five, but she never noticed he never aged. She wasn’t a cat person. She wasn’t any kind of animal person I ever discovered. She liked watching monkeys in the monkey house, but that’s not the same, is it? I know it sounds weird, but that’s one of the reasons we broke up. I just couldn’t be with somebody who didn’t like animals. When it came down to it, she didn’t like people all that much. Which makes sense—people are animals, smart worrisome animals, but still animals.

Anyway, she peacefully coexisted with Ben, and he was never an issue. I never dated anyone else more than a year or so, and nobody who spent much time around Ben. Then at 46, I started going out with Shannon. That didn’t last long—the just going out. Our third date started Friday at four—she took off work an hour early—and ended Tuesday at noon. I told Benjamin it was the closest to a resurrection I’d experienced in my life, and maybe it would help me understand him better. He pointed out, however, that death was a necessary precondition of resurrection. He played dead and sprang back to life, a favorite trick of his, flicking his smartass tail. I’ve always talked to Ben. He hasn’t always answered.