SALVE ROMA! A Felidae Novel - By Akif Pirincci Page 0,71
braveness I did just that. I jumped onto the windowsill and rushed into the cabin.
The first impression turned out to be like expected. I stood in the workshop of some Gyro Gearloose, where there was no hint on humane living except for a sleeper and a fridge at the age of Noah. An old-fashioned black reading light illuminated the right side of the room, which was dominated by two pasting tables. On top of these there was a sheer unbelievable clutter of electronic parts, cable reels with different colors, indefinable devices, soldering irons, meters with small black and white monitors, a real screwdriver pick-a-stick and countless manuals. Next to that gobs of boards, microprocessors, gutted video eyes and small gas bottles, everything looked like exploded and spread in chaos. Some parts cast long shadows on the wall, which even intensified the effect of this mess.
Cautiously, I dared to enter this battlefield, always anxious to not step on something sharp with the sensitive pads of my paws. Then I jumped onto the tables and sniffed at every single exhibit. Although the first impression totally matched Sancta’s picture of a obsessed married technical nerd, and although there were no hints of bloody excesses, little by little irritating details came to light.
Yellowed clippings, torn-out pages from pictures books and private photos were crooked at the wall with duct tape. The topic, which combined the single parts of this collage, slowly filtered through. They were shots from old paintings, which heroized the invasion of the crusaders in Jerusalem or the garden of paradise; press photos of the disastrous attack on the twin towers in New York: the hell explosion of the glass facades, people, who fell into death with struggling limbs, the crashing cathedrals of the Western world and next to that the mildly smiling faces of Osama bin Laden and other Arabian terrorists. Then again pictures with family motives: a young family with three little children in the backyard of a house with the unique Tuscan landscape of broad vineyards behind it. The same family at the beach, the kids looked a little older now, or at the fun fair. And an Italian funeral parade with a lot of pomp – and three children’s caskets. Although the unhappy father of these kids looked very young in all of these pictures and he must have aged since they were shot, I believed to know him from somewhere. I could have sworn that I had run into this man just a couple of days ago. A moment later it got happy again. An almost endless photo series showed Sancta in the most stunning poses. Sancta on pillar rudiments at the Forum Romanum, Sancta sleeping on the giant head of a statue, Sancta in front of the Temple of Saturn ...
Suddenly I spotted a rather crinkled and brownish picture, which struck me with horror. If a lightning had shot through the window and hit me directly at the head, the effect couldn’t have been more devastating: The medical illustration showed a perfect profile of a feline inner ear. Worst of all was the many blood drops on the paper!
»Francis!«
I hastily turned around and tried to trace Antonio’s voice while my heart beat like a drum. At that I noticed how much had been unrevealed due to the pale light. The left part of the room was totally dark, and hadn’t I had the guiding green eyes in the distance, I would probably been lost. I jumped down the table and went to Antonio. He was also standing on a table, a table with a single broad base in the middle. The thing seemed to be metallic.
After I had jumped on it in a single bound, I made the second terrible discovery. Underneath our paws was a little operation table with straps on its sides, which was used for operating animals. Swiveling operating lights hung above us. Next to us anesthesia – and ventilator machines, inhalation masks and a wheeled table on which several surgical instruments were lined up. There was no doubt that the reprehensible amputations had been performed here and that the obtained organs then had been manufactured into high tech products in the »electrical goods department« a few steps away. It was incredible, we had found the monster’s cave!
But the most terrifying still waited for its discovery. Directly in front of our paws a green surgery drape seemed to cover a congener. Anxiously, I looked into Antonio’s eyes. Given this horror, these were frozen.