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Daddy Derek was hunched over a drink in the kitchen, his fingers clawing at his scalp to give him even a little sensation in this moment of numbing dread. Cool Cat, his dearest and very genetically related son, hadn’t been in a film for almost 4 years. It was weighing down on him hard since convincing Cool Cat that he’s famous was how Daddy Derek kept him off Daddy Derek’s back for a while. But Daddy hadn’t had his alone time with Mama Cat in a long time. That was unacceptable.
Daddy Derek needed a new way to keep Cool Cat away. Away for a long time. Something far greater than a fatal school event. No, he needed something innovative. A film that would catch the attention of billions of people around the globe. His genius could do it, after all. He had been holding back this whole time and taking it easy on the film industry. As a genius, he was confident that he could create a summer event greater than Avatar: Way of the Water.
Daddy Derek was found by Mama cat while he searched up “How to make a popular movie” on the computer. He found a deluge of videos talking about popular movies that all had one thing in common. They all believed nothing was original and that everything has to be a sequel. While he was crushed by this new information, he was still resilient enough to rise up to the challenge. He wasn’t normally one to make sequels. That’s why none of his new films have come out yet. But he could do it this once. For Cool Cat. For Mama Cat’s sweet loving. He would do it.
But what could he do? What was a sequel that hadn’t been done? It was hard for him to tell, given that all of the recent movies he had seen were sequels. He thought really hard and fast and found that there was only one thing that hadn’t been done twice. War. But a specific war. A modern war. The World War? No, that’s too big and it already has a sequel. A jungle war. The Vietnam War.
Daddy Derek stood up from his position on the toilet, having brought his laptop to the bathroom with him. It was the only place that Cool Cat wasn’t. Daddy Derek ran out of the bathroom and to Cool Cat’s bedroom. He could have found him anywhere, but Cool Cat preferred him to find him here.
“Cool Cat!” Daddy Derek ran over to his blood relative son and caressed his fuzzy cheek. “I have a new movie for you to be in, Son. It’s a real good one this time. I think, if you were in it, it’d sell big “B” billions across the globe.” Daddy Derek handed Cool Cat a script he had printed moments ago. It was still warm and the ink looked wet.
Cool Cat picked up the freshly baked pages and gasped. “Woooooah! Noooo waaaay! Cool Cat Saves the Vitamins? I’ve always wanted to be in a health movie! Maybe you can use special effects to shrink me down and go into a body!”
Daddy Derek shook his head and struggled to keep his faked smile up. “No, no, Cool Cat. It’s Vietnam! We’re going to kick off a new Vietnam War and you’re going to star in it.”
Cool Cat gasped, “A war? Wow! I’ve never been in a war before!”
Daddy Derek grinned sincerly. “That’s right, Cool Cat. I’ve already gotten it started. On my way in here, I stopped by the printer, and my nuclear launch codes were on the table, so I thought why not and bombed the ocean near Vietnam, creating a radioactive disaster and promptly starting a war between the US and Vietnam.”
Cool Cat gasped. “Wow! I caaaaan’t believe it! You’d start a whole war just for me? Thanks, Daddy!”
“Yes, Cool Cat,” said Daddy Derek. “Now leave. Go, my son. Go to Vietnam and leave me alone.”
Cool Cat jumped out of bed and ran down the stairs, cheering and singing a song. “I’m going to Vietnam! I’m going to Vietnam! I’ve been drafted! I’ve been drafted!” Cool Cat ran out the door and sprinted towards the airport. Daddy Derek knew his habits and bought him a ticket that he could pick up at the airport.
Cool Cat sprinted across the highway, creating several severe crashes before he jumped over a fence and made his way across the runway. He ran up to the first plane he saw and crawled up the stairway to the cabin. “Heeeeey, everybody!” Cool Cat had the attention of everybody now. Everybody looked frightened by the large cat child. “I’m going to Vietnam! And looks like you’re all coming with me! Let’s get this plane to Vietnam and win a war!”
The scared people suddenly began to brighten up. The speech that Cool Cat had delivered invigorated the people in the plane with the courage to fight, and win, a war. They reached into each of their American luggage and pulled out rations and rifles to each other, even the children. Everybody was ready to participate.
Cool Cat took his seat and relaxed comfortably as the plane made its way to Vietnam. After a few hours and a few bags of peanuts, the plane had finally crossed into Vietnam. Cool Cat gasped and looked at his phone, tracking the flight directly on his GPS app. Cool Cat cheered. “We’re here! Now it’s time to land this plane and get to war!”
Cool Cat swiped on his phone and turned off airplane mode. The airplane began to shake and tremble. Cool Cat looked out the window and saw the wing on the plane was breaking apart before exploding at the engine. Scraps of wing peeled away before the wing split in half, plummeting through the clouds and diving towards the earth in a ball of fire.
Cool Cat cheered. “Looks like we’ll be landing soon! Let’s gooooo!” Cool Cat ran down the cabin of now screaming passengers and grabbed a parachute from one of the panicked civilians. He reached over a pair of people strapped into their seats and gripped the emergency door lever, pulling down on it until the door blew off the side of the plane and sent Cool Cat soaring through the air with the released cabin pressure.
After a few spins and tumbles in the open air, Cool Cat balanced himself out with his belly aimed at the ground and arms stretched outward of him. The sound of a dying plane and screaming passengers faded behind him as he fell towards earth with scattered luggage. But all Cool Cat could hear was the rush of air in his feline ears and his own cheers of youthful joy. After a couple thousand feet of falling, he deployed his parachute and slowed his descent.
Luckily for Cool Cat, he was right above the makeshift military base that Daddy Derek had commissioned. He landed among his fellow soldiers and ran straight towards the biggest man. A drill sergeant was there to greet him. “Ah, Cool Cat,” he said. “You’re here. Good. You’re just the thing we need to win this war. It’s all on you, Agent Orange.”
Cool Cat gasped. “Wow! I get a cool nickname right away? That’s suuuuper duuuper!” Cool Cat ran off to line up with his fellow enlisted and stood next to a rather short soldier. He looked quite young, too. In fact, he was a very familiar face! Cool Cat turned his large, intimidating head towards the familiar person and gasped. “Butch the Bully!”
Butch, whose eyes looked wet and puffy, turned to see his classmate standing right next to him. “Oh no,” he muttered. He looked rough with rips in his pants and a few dark red stains on his shirt. Mud was caked on his bare arms and his hands looked calloused. “Why are you here? This isn’t a place for kids like us.”
Cool Cat pointed both thumbs at his chest and laughed. Then he gasped. “This is the setting for the new movie I’m gonna be in! I’m gonna be the hero who saves Vietnam!” He sounded proud but tilted his head and placed his hands on his hips. “What are YOU doing here, Butch the Bully? Here to bully the troops?”
Butch looked towards the ground, eyes dim and body tired. “I was just picking up guns I found on the ground. That’s all. I kept finding them all over the place. One after another, gun after gun. I don’t know what possessed me to do it, but I couldn’t stop picking them up. One after another, I added them to my backpack. It was like a trail of candy. Before I knew it, I was here in Vietnam. They took my guns away and distributed them among the troops before putting me through training. I’m not supposed to be here. What did I do to deserve this?”
Cool Cat jabbed a finger towards Butch the Bully. “That’s what you get for being a bully! And I HAAAAATE bullies!” Cool Cat crossed his arms and looked away, turning the other cheek on what he perceived to be an awful child.
Butch continued staring at the ground, saying nothing.
A siren went off and the whole base started to move. Soldiers were rushing around the camp, grabbing guns and charging into the dense jungle. Even Butch, quiet and working on auto-pilot, had gathered his things and began moving out into the brush. Cool Cat looked around and asked, “Whaaaat’s going on? Where are we going?”
The sergeant came up and handed Cool Cat an M14 rifle. “It’s war, Agent Orange. It’s time to show us your stuff. As our secret weapon, we’re sending you into the thick of it. There are a lot of communists out there and it’s up to us to stop them before they spread Marxist propaganda to our youths.”
Cool Cat looked down at the rifle in his paws and then up to the sergeant. “Oh no! A gun! I’m not allowed to hold guns! I’m just a kid!”
The sergeant grimaced at the six and a half foot tall “child” standing in front of him. “Well, Agent Orange, as your sergeant and uh… The adult in charge of you, you’re allowed to use the gun.”
Cool Cat cheered and raised his rifle into the air before spinning around and running in towards the jungle with his fellow soldiers. He breached through bushes and shot through low hanging vines as he ran, finally finding where the other soldiers had gathered up and hunkered down. Cool Cat crouched next to them, his head still poking out from above the bushes. “What’s up my fellow Americans? Are we ready to save Vietnam?”
The men before Cool Cat shushed at him and waved their hands, pleading with him to get down lower. Cool Cat did not listen. Instead, he stood up and looked around, eyes wide as usual and looking out for what the big deal was. “I don’t see anything,” said Cool Cat. “What’re you guys hiding from?”
Cool Cat stepped out from the bushes and into a clearing where the sun was bright and the air was thick with oxygen. It was a big departure from his usual suburban life. “Wow! This place looks like a fun place to play in! Come on, guys! Let’s play tag!” Cool Cat tapped Butch the Bully’s shoulder before running out into the clearing. “Tag! You’re it!”
Butch the Bully’s eyes went wide as he saw his classmate run out into the open. He reached out, trying to grab at Cool Cat’s tail, but it wasn’t there this time. Cool Cat went out about twenty feet before an explosion went off. Everybody else covered their heads as rubble and dirt fell through the canopy. Butch the Bully was shivering. He couldn’t stop him. He couldn’t save him. They weren’t friends, but he didn’t deserve that, he thought.
As the smoke cleared and scattered flames withered out among the hydrated plants, a tall, orange body remained standing in the center of a shallow crater. Cool Cat stepped up from the crater and crossed his arms. “Well that wasn’t very nice! Butch the Bully, did you have something to do with this?”
Butch looked horrified. How could anybody have survived that? He wasn’t a normal kid. Something was wrong with that cat. Cool Cat turned back to the direction he was running and continued. Explosion after explosion went off. After the third explosion, gunfire began to fill the gaps between ear-wrecking booms. He soon found himself among scared faces and trembling men. They couldn’t even hold their rifles up against him as he looked around. “Hey there, pals! I’m here to save Vietnam! How’s about you come along and we can do it together as friends!”
The men didn’t understand the talking cat child. But the cheery voice had unnerved them. They slowly got up from their positions and started to move away, eyes locked on the orange menace on their way out. Cool Cat shrugged and kept running. “Guess they were tired!” He kept running. He blew through wires, mines, and multiple ambushes. He didn’t stop for any of it.
Back at home, Daddy Derek was pushing his way up along Mama Cat’s body as she laid in a bed of silk sheets and rose petals. He growled with delight as his fuzzy wife rubbed her big paws against his half-naked body. But before any more fun could be had, Cool Cat bust through the bedroom door, covered in mud, leaves, and napalm.
“Daddy Derek,” cheered Cool Cat. “I’ve come back from Vietnam and we won!”
Daddy Derek toppled over onto the other side of the bed and pulled his discarded shirt up to his chest while Mama Cat ducked under the sheets. “Wh-What?” Daddy Derek looked confused and panicked. “B-But the first one took twenty years. How did you win the war in one day?”
Cool Cat shrugged. “I was just playing tag and everybody ran off! When everybody else caught up, they said we had won! The other team had given up! I saved Vietnam!”
Daddy Derek grimaced. “Glad to have you back, Cool Cat…”
The End