Polydactyl Poppy by Gray Winsler | Art by Tyler Davis

Polydactyl Poppy
By Gray Winsler
Art by Tyler Davis
Published Issue 128, August 2024

Most house cats have never been on opioids. Maisey was not most cats. She was no longer sure she was a cat at all. Her fur was warm and tingly. It felt like microwaved glitter. It felt like Rainbow Road. She could not tell where her fur ended and the floor’s fur began. She was not sure they were separate. She felt she was melting into the floor. Becoming a puddle of fluff. She did not mind melting, becoming infinite fluff. She had never been happier.

The process of procuring these drugs had been terrifying, torturous and completely incidental. One moment she was leaping at the evil crows whose plumpish bodies teased her daily, and the next she was falling, falling, falling into a big rock below. It had been painful, but Maisey could no longer conceive of pain. Pain was a trustworthy dog or a pleasant bath. Pain was impossible.

What her hairless housemates saw was this: Maisey got her claw stuck in a window screen, which then dislodged itself from the window frame, and both Maisey and the screen proceeded to fall out of a second story window. Her housemates were frantic, distraught. They thought she was dead. They forgot Maisey still had six lives. She was now down to five.

Maisey had little recollection of what happened after falling. She knew only that her hairless housemates found her and began to leak wet globules from their eyes. She was grateful to be found — until they stuffed her into tiny box and took her to some place where other hairless (strange hairless, smelly hairless, mean hairless) attempted to stick a tube up her ass. Maisey did not allow this to occur. She clawed and hissed until the mean hairless retreated. She thought she had defeated them, until one returned with a long, skinny, shiny claw and stabbed her with it.

But these were distant memories now. Time had dissolved when Maisey melted into the floor, when she became rainbow fluff, when she became glittering joy. Her hairless housemates gawked at her. They were amused by her drooping, elastic limbs. They were amused by her numerous toes, polydactyl feet. When Maisey looked at her own toes they seemed to multiply. She did not mind. Nothing seemed to bother her now, not even the plumpish crows squawking beyond reach.

Water! Thirst suddenly overwhelmed her. She meandered wobbly to her watering hole. She dipped her head into the bowl. Water flowed into her mouth like a river. How long had she been drinking for? She could not say. Maybe always. When the river stopped flowing she looked up and was surprised to see something beyond the invisible wall.

Maisey’s protuberant eyes widened. On the other side of the invisible wall she saw a tigress staring at her. It seemed to be swimming toward her, water rippling in its wake. She noticed fear, her own fear, distant, removed, a feeling of another Maisey, a Maisey she had once been but was not now. She did not move, she let the tigress approach.

Who are you? asked Maisey.

Who are we? asked the tigress.

The words struck Maisey as abruptly as her fall. But there was no pain, only recognition, revelation, rejuvenation. Maisey stared into those protuberant eyes and saw herself. She was a tigress. She was a queen of the jungle.

How? Maisey asked.

The jungle lives inside us all, said the tigress.

Maisey’s heart beat like a drum. She felt the pulse of the jungle in each thud. The furry floor beneath her dissolved, became water. She was swimming now. She was the tigress. Jungle birds flew overhead. Lunch flew overhead. Maisey stared at them. She felt herself catch them in her claws. She felt their flesh between her teeth. Her mind was aglow, awash in the joy of a billion dead birds. She felt the triumph of her kin over small mammals across the universe. She was not just a queen of the jungle, she was the collective huntress, she was the universal domination of Felidae. She was all that cat had been, and all that cat would be. Infinite fluff and unstoppable claw. Calico calamity. Abyssinian ascendance. She was alive. She was cat.

What her hairless housemates saw was this: Maisey had not moved for several hours. Her pupils were giant black saucers. They watched her all day, bemused, wondering what she was thinking. But they would never know what thoughts wandered through the huntress’ mind.  

Gray Winsler is the first ginger to be published in Birdy Magazine, Issue 091. He loved living in Denver despite his allergy to the sun and is now based in Ithaca, NY. He spends his mornings with his dog Indy by his side, writing as much as possible before his 9-to-5. If you’re curious about Normal, IL or why TacoBell is bomb, you can find more on his site.

Check out Gray’s last Birdy install, Adrift and Tyler’s, Spidy Senses, in case you missed those or head to our Explore section to see more work by these two creatives.