Now I’ve heard all that bullshit about tossing salt over
your shoulder for luck and rabbit’s feet and horse shoes and
knocking on wood. Don’t step on a crack or you’ll break your
mother’s back or Jesus’ or whoever’s. Bullshit. Pure and
simple. Then there was Pink Floyd.
Not the band. Give me a break. Pink Floyd was a cat. Well,
he used to be a cat. I mean, he still is. Or was. Isn’t that
weird? We talk like he isn’t a cat anymore. He still is a cat.
Just a dead one.
In case you’re wonderin’, I never knew Pink Floyd when he
was alive. Nor was I responsible for his death. And I never
came into contact with him much after he was dead–Thank God.
Pink Floyd appeared to my friends on an otherwise
hassle-free road trip. The car lights lit up his eyes as he
stood at the edge of the road. He didn’t run like most wild
animals do. He just stared back at them like an unnatural
thing. And that’s what Pink Floyd was, unnatural.
Y’know, looking back on it, it’s like soooo obvious that
Pink Floyd had been dumped there but some other miserable
bastard hoping to escape him. But nobody saw that then. All
they saw was a spotted dead cat about the size of a dog,
frozen in place for all time.
Pink Floyd also has this weird pink hue, like he’d been
dunked in a punch bowl. If he was born pink or died because he
was pink or may be the taxidermist fucked up and made him pink
is any body’s guess.
What matters, is that he is pink. The fact that Pink Floyd
is pink is as immutable as the fact that he is dead. And now
he never moves, never deteriorates. Pink Floyd is eternal,
ephemeral, and cursed.
Icarus was on that hassle-free road trip when they drove
past Pink Floyd. It was Icarus who decided he looked cool.
Icarus brought Pink Floyd to parties and showed him off. Pink
Floyd became a mascot of sorts. As much as a stuffed, dead,
unnatural pink cat might.
And then, Icarus became soup. Working in an unheated
warehouse, he went home took a bath and passed out. The
bastard drowned. That was it. Game over.
Pink Floyd’s in the next room, his flamingo coat glowing to
match his eyes. They stayed that way until we found them days
later.
Then Pink Floyd went to Attila. It wasn’t long after that,
Attila spilled his brain stem on the carpet.
Then, well, I didn’t see Pink Floyd for months. And good
riddance, man. Who wants to deal with that? Tell you the
truth, I forgot all about that freaky cat.
Then a friend asks me to help get his gear out a garage
that Attila’s folks owned. I’m carrying the last box when I
see unreal eyes burning fire in the back of the storage area.
The hair shoots up on my neck. No shit. Me. I’m trying to
figure what has me scared, when my friend steps up beside me.
"Dude, is that Floyd?"
"Yeah. I ain’t going near it."
I back out of the garage, held hostage of the stare of the
dead and unnatural spawn which belongs in a nether world. I
tell myself it’s silly to fear cat. A facade of a cat, really.
Both deaths were totally unrelated. Any idiot could tell you
that.
I stare at the unholy thing as we bolt shut the door on
Pink Floyd. Deep down, I don’t believe it’s cursed.
