Vulpes Vulpes

The curtains parted.  Into the spotlight walked the fox; his red coat shined on the stage for the whole audience to see.  He stood up on his hind legs.  The two hundred or so theatre goers, in their tuxedos and ball gowns, looked on in anticipation of what the fox would say.

“I Am God,” he said.  The audience sat transfixed.  “I command your attention like the sea from a cliff top, or the sun when it peaks through an overcast sky.”

A cat wearing 18^th century English colonial attire entered stage left.  He looked to the fox and said, “What are you called, fox?”

The fox dropped down to all fours.  With his tail up in an ‘s’ shape and his head held high, he said, “Vulpes, to the second power!”  A pink banner unrolled vertically from the top of the stage.  It said, ‘Vulpes’ with the small 2, in an art deco font.  He paused to pose for the audience, then asked him, “And who are you, clothed cat?”

The cat turned his head stage left and shouted to someone off stage, “Bring it out!”  Two brown tabbies pushed out a large teal cube that came to the height of the cat’s shoulder.  The tabbies then retreated off stage left as the cat jumped up upon the cube.  

“I am three dimensions!” he said while spreading his arms wide.

The fox stood back to his hind legs and inquired defiantly, “You come here and have the arrogance to think the third power would be enough?”  The fox turned to stage right and shouted, “Now is the time!”

A second fox, indistinguishable from the first, entered stage right and signaled off stage to widen the curtains.  Revealed were two giant speakers, one on each far side of the stage.  The two foxes stood side by side, each with one arm over the other’s shoulder.  The cat sat down on the edge of his cube, his legs hanging over.  He watched intrigued, ready to be amused.

The music began with the slow rise of a wubbing pulse.  After increasing to its peak volume, a deep bass beat began with foxes kicking in unison to it.  The volume was more intense than that at a loud club.  The bass was so strong that the theatre shook and odd ceiling tiles began to fall into the audience.  People began getting up to find cover and save their ear drums.  The kicking foxes inched closer and closer to the cat’s cube.  The fox’s lyrics kicked in and they were, “Vulpes to the fourth power!”  The fox’s lyrical voice was louder than the beat and by now all the audience had vacated.

The kickers had reached the cube, and they were kicking it.  The cat whistled to the tabbies and pointed at the exit.  The need to escape returned the cat to quadrupedal movement.  He leapt on all fours over the kicking foxes, stood up, and tipped his hat to the fox.  The three felines exited the theatre as the music was revving up to a bass drop.

Outside, a platoon of mounted soldiers, also cats, wearing shining cuirasses and holding burning torches, waited in twilight.  The cat went up to the platoon’s commander and gave the order, “Drop the Bass.”

The bass dropped, with music easily audible throughout the square.  The dragoons barred the theatre doors and began to fire it with their torches.  In minutes the structure burst into an inferno.  The music only stopped once the burning roof collapsed in on the stage.

The cat looked on at the charred heap of rubble and said, “Foxes are squares.”

-Story by Zytroft, 2018