(An excerpt from The Katya Chronicles)
Katya is salivating.
As the raft covered with magical fairy dust floats down the large fishpond towards the waterfall.
The family she daydreams about is in grave danger. They’ve just feasted on wild bugs
and drank the most incredible underground spring water this side of Kahalu’u. The three rodents are satiated, fast asleep, and heading towards a waterfall of epic proportions.
She conjures this without wasting a syllable from her cat dish delivered by the great grand-muse herself; a rather sizeable flying cockroach that she’s named Kim, who lives in the coconut palm with another small rat family of three.
Kim summons Edgar Allan Poe, whose verses spout from a reservoir as rich and as pure as this mountainous source—inspiring Katya to plan her attack. Her muse shudders to have another round but humors the feline despite herself.
Katya conceives a stream with three rodents racing over a waterfall, atop a circular craft of extra-sharp cheddar. Chained to this wheel that spins them around like a Frisbee until the rats are thrown on top of a blanket of green lily pads, into a shallow fishpond, ultimately crashing onto the rocks below. Two of them instantly drowned in the muddy water. She celebrates by sharpening her claws on the concrete.
One survives by scrambling up a pink and blue impatiens cascade, crawling on his fat rat belly. He is drenched and dazed as he inches into the jaws of a ravenous, humorless orange cat named Katya, who rips him to shreds and spits out the entrails, rinsing the foul taste with a slice of banana and a fifth of Cousin Tiki’s famous Polynesian rum. On this day, like any other, an ordinary day in the life of a cat and her mad Prince, momentarily lost in time. The way back, fading now with the menehune.
Cornelia DeDona 11/26/25
Corney Press 