Cat Valhalla by Todd Robert Petersen

“This is a model of Cat Valhalla. Kettirholla. The Hall of the Fallen Cats,” Vestergaard said. “I mean, it's as I imagine it. We can't go there because we are human.

Like so many of these SSL stories, and like so many great short stories in general, today’s story from Todd has this strong, confident, (and hilarious!) voice that grabbed me from the very first paragraph and never let go. So many elements are so wonderfully captured — interpersonal office dynamics, workplace crush, the way a group can bond over shared ridicule of a particular brand of nerd… — all leading to a perfectly “surprising yet inevitable” ending that I actually found myself delighted in how victorious it felt. I accepted it immediately, and excitedly, with the note to Todd that, “I fucking love this story!” (A note and reaction we touch on in our interview coming next week.) I hope you all fucking love it, too.

PLUS, the amazing accompanying art was done by Zoë Petersen, who did the wonderful art for Anna Vangala Jones’ “The Legend of the Convenience Store Cashier”… and who is also Todd’s daughter!

—Aaron Burch

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My exact words were that Jessica and I were going to lunch after the all-hands-on-deck meeting, not that it was going to be some kind of “all-hands-will-go-to-lunch-together” thing. Ten people for lunch is ridiculous. Ten people can't talk to each other. Ten people trigger the maximum tip. Ten people for lunch is eight people too many. It doesn't help that I hate them all, especially Penzey. He's the kind of guy who will call an IPO an IPA then laugh until he starts coughing. I mean, everybody hates him, and he has no idea.

When I said what Jessica and I were doing for lunch, I didn't trail off and leave an opening or say anything even remotely close to “let's all…” They pounced on me. That's what they do.

But it gets worse. When I was grabbing my jacket and phone, Jessica called everybody who was now going to lunch over to show us a video. She said it could give us something to talk about. This made everyone else feel extra-invited. But I couldn't complain about it. The only tool I had in my utility belt was to show Jessica that I was totally excited about her video, which was sort of worth it because Jessica looked right at me and said, “Thank you, Charles.”

Everybody else said, “Thank you, Charles,” in shitty high-pitched voices, then Jessica told us we were all going to totally die laughing.

“Dying from laughter is really just asphyxiation,” Penzey said, “which is one of the worst ways to go.”

When everybody looked at him weird, he doubled down. “I’m not kidding. It takes longer to asphyxiate than people think.” This explanation didn't bring anyone over to his side, so he just kept going. “The point is laughter comes from the diaphragm, which is the muscle for breathing, it's not—”

“Penzey,” somebody said, “explaining a joke wrecks it.”

Before a fight could spin up, Jessica expanded the video into fullscreen. “Penzy, honey, this is why you don't have any friends,” she said, and before Penzy could say, “But you're my friends,” Jessica turned back to her computer and gave us the intro. “Okay, so you know that dweeb who works in accounts payable, Derek something?"

“Vestergaard,” somebody said.

“Well, you're never going to believe this,” Jessica said, and then she triumphantly clicked the spacebar and we all crowded in, I mean really crowded in.

On the screen, there was a fade-in on a dungeon and two skeletons chained to the wall, which was so unrealistic because everyone knows bones would just fall apart. This is why zombie movies are stupid. All you have to do is wait. After a month, a body starts to liquify. My uncle who works for a trauma cleaning company told us that at Thanksgiving dinner. But I'm glad I didn’t say anything because I realized I was being very Penzyish, and I hated myself for it.

In Vestergaard’s little model of a dungeon corner, there were tiny bats hanging upside down and torches on the wall made out of Christmas lights. There was a soundtrack of some sick Norwegian speed metal, and Jessica turned it up. A title spun in that was written in drippy yellow goth letters that said, Foam Forge, Episode 65.

A second later it was gone, and there was Vestergaard in a collared cape wearing a black t-shirt that said “Crit Happens.” Before I could ask what crit was, somebody did it for me, and they got shushed.

Bullet dodged.

“Hey table toppers,” Vestergaard said, smiling, his front teeth tipped back, making him sort of look like a vampire. “Last time we went over some wash techniques for adding patina and highlights to your foam work. This week I’m going to break out the air brush, and we’ll take an even deeper dive.”

Everybody cracked up all at once.

“How many of these are there?” somebody asked.

“At least sixty-five,” somebody else shot back. “Pay attention.”

Then Vestergaard started showing off his airbrushes. He had like five of them, and he went off about running them with a CO2 tank, which is quieter than a compressor and maintenance free. People went full-on Mystery Science Theater 3000, criticizing everything, pointing out that he was wearing those grandpa flip-up magnifying lenses over his glasses. They couldn’t wait for him to flip them down.

My back was starting to hurt, so I tried to stand up, but people were everywhere.

Vestergaard launched into a discussion of oils vs acrylics and drying time and different sheens. That’s what he called them. Sheens.

I checked his views, and it said he had 1.2 million. Million. Seriously.

“Hey, you guys,” I said, “Vestergaard is famous.”

“But is dork-famous truly famous?” Jessica asked.

Everybody laughed, even Penzy, who said “dork famous” like five more times until somebody told him to shut up.

A lot of the video was close-ups of Vestergaard painting swords and helmets and all kind of stuff so they stopped looking like toys and turned into something kind of real. At the end, he showed before-and-after shots, and his stuff looked like something right out of Baldur's Gate.

Somebody said, “Play another one,” and somebody else said, “Be careful, you don’t want your virginity to grow back.” Everybody just fell against each other laughing, and through the tangle of arms and everything, I could see Jessica carefully wiping her eyes.

“Hey guys, what’s up?” somebody said.

Turns out it was Vestergaard.

“Oh crap. Hey Derek,” somebody warned, standing, which triggered a whole cascade of standing and separating and people trying to look like nothing was going on.

“Jessica, um, she just showed us a hilarious video,” somebody said.

Vestergaard stared at us from the other side of Jessica’s desk. He was wearing a tight golf shirt tucked in. He looked at us, separated his lips, and then closed them again. “What’s the video?” he said.

“It’s the one...you know,” Jessica stumbled, “where that guy says wafflely wedded wife. You know, instead of—”

“Lawfully.” Vestergaard finished. “My mom sent me that one.” It didn’t sound like a burn at first, but I kind of think it was. Derek walked away from us, down the row between desks, with his Tupperware thing of noodles.

When he was gone, somebody said, “Crit Happens,” and we all cracked up again.

That lunch with everybody was the worst. My sandwich was wet, and I did not sit by Jessica. I was so pissed. And the whole afternoon sucked. To make up for it I stayed up late grudge-watching Foam Forge videos. But it wasn’t the same alone. Nothing ever is.

My grandmother had a needlepoint thing in her apartment that said, Couples who laugh together, last together. I thought about that and I wished I had Jessica’s number so we could text about how Vestergaard talks about these goblins and banshees and basilisks like they were real things. I wanted to tell her how he totally went down a rabbit hole about something called a manticore. I looked it up. It’s like a lion with a dude’s head plus bat wings plus a scorpion tail.

Instead of texting, I tried to make a list of Vestergaard jokes, so I could tell them tomorrow. I thought up nine.

The next morning when I came out of the subway, I stopped and got two coffees, one for me and one for Jessica, and on the way into the building it started to snow, which is a pain, but it's okay for Christmas, I guess.

When I got to our floor, I took the coffee to Jessica’s desk. I wanted to ask if she saw the video where Vestergaard talked about getting accurate flesh tones. But Jessica wasn’t there. From the looks of it, she hadn’t even been in yet. No coat or purse. Her computer was asleep, no screen saver. I felt the seat of her chair and it was cool.

Penzey saw me and snickered and said, “I bet you can leave a note on her locker.”

I gave him the finger and set the coffee on her desk. It came with a stupid candy cane taped to the side. But it came untaped, so I leaned it against the cup. When I turned to go, Penzey was tracing hearts on my chest with a red laser pointer.

I said, “If I go blind, you’re a dead man.”

I went back to my desk and looked through my emails and updated some spreadsheets, then checked Slack. Her status said, Away.

Penzey came by and stood behind me and asked if I saw any more of Vestergaard’s videos.

I said, “Why would I watch that dweeb channel?”

Penzey blew his nose a couple of times with a handkerchief, stuffed it in his pocket, then said, “I know you have a lot of porn to stay caught up on. You’re in a fantasy league, right?” Then he moseyed away, laughing to himself.

That's the real reason he doesn't have any friends.

I worked on my slides for a marketing meeting after lunch, then I checked Jessica’s desk for the coffee, and it was gone. So was the candy cane. I looked over at Penzey, and he had it sticking straight out of his mouth. He stared with just his eyeballs tracking me as I walked away.

I went to lunch by myself to make up for yesterday. I got a reuben and potato salad, which is really the only kind of salad I eat. I also ate the whole pickle, which counts as the vegetable. The food was good, but I was bummed. I thought about Penzey stealing Jessica's candy cane. There was a time in my life when I would have come up behind him and slugged him right in the kidney for that and let him drop to his knees. I don’t do that kind of thing anymore, so all the mad just pools up inside while the rest of me acts like somebody who has life and a job and responsibilities.

The afternoon marketing meeting was a bust. They went with somebody else’s idea, which is straight-up status quo around here.

When everybody was standing around after the meeting, picking through one of the Christmas plates, Hannah came into the conference room and said, “Oh my god, you guys!”

We were all, “What?”

And Hannah went, “You didn't hear?”

And we said we did not hear, and Hannah said that when Jessica got home last night she found out her cat had died. Hung itself—or hanged itself—I never know how you’re supposed to say it. The cat had climbed up into her Christmas tree and slipped, and its neck got all twisted up in the lights.

The room went quiet, and we all looked at each other with Christmas cookies in our hands.

Eventually I said, “She really loved that cat, you guys.”

Hannah looked at me with a no duh face, which I thought was out of line because I was just trying to empathize.

Vestergaard passed by the conference room and saw us all in there and asked if there were any Mexican wedding cakes left. Somebody pushed the plate across the table so he could reach it. He leaned forward and took one and put the whole thing in his mouth then read the room and said, “Is something wrong?” Crumbs shot out of his mouth and landed on the floor.

Hannah told the story again, but this time she started to cry a little, and she said the cat’s name (Fannie Mae), which made it even sadder.

Vestergaard closed his eyes and lifted his head, and you could see him start to rumble, inside first, deep, like a volcano. It started with a shudder and a slow collapse of his shoulders. He covered his face with one hand and reached out for Hannah with the other. She gave him a long, pressing hug, which is not something we're supposed to do. We've had trainings on that.

Vestergaard left a bunch of powdered sugar on the back of Hannah’s shirt, which he tried to brush off, but his hands were wet with tears, so it boogered up.

Vestergaard asked about how Jessica was doing and if anyone was planning to do anything.

There were no plans.

When Vestergaard suggested we all go in on something, maybe a plant, there was this long pause. Eventually, when nobody answered, Vestergaard looked around and said, “I’m an idiot. Sorry.” And then he left.

Later on, we heard Vestergaard crying in his office.

At about three he went home.

Crybaby Vestergaard was gone for the rest of the week. You can’t blame him, though. If I broke down like a child in front of everyone, I’d probably ghost out too. It would be faster to start over somewhere else than figure out how to get people forget you did something like that.

On Thursday, a card came around for Jessica. I don’t know why they did it, because people were talking crap about her, saying stuff like, “I heard she tried to get HR to let her take a grievance week. That’s for when people die. You know, human beings.”

Shannon, who was the primary instigator of that shit, brought the card to to me and stood there waiting for me to just crank something out of my heart on demand.

I set the envelope on the side and turned the card over. On the front was a beach and a line of human footprints in the sand. Next to it was a parallel line of cat footprints, but they only went halfway up the card before they just stopped. The message was in gold cursive. Those we love never go away, they walk beside us always, in our hearts.

The inside was packed with sorry for your loss and Oh, Jessica. The stupid printed message inside, which I guess was supposed to be how we all felt, said, At this difficult time our hearts go out to you.

But that wasn’t what I wanted to say. I mean, first, how can cats be in our hearts? Are they like those worms that killed my cousin's dog? Then somehow we are supposed to take our cat-filled hearts and let them out. Out of where? Our chests? What is this? Temple of Doom? The card wants us to believe that we have cloned the dead cat and stuffed the clones inside our bodies, and really, who wants that?

Cards are stupid, and people are idiots.

I looked around and realized I was probably the only one thinking about the card that way, so I just asked if I could sign it, because who wants to explain anything complicated to any of these assholes. Also, I didn’t want to not sign it and make Jessica think I was weird, or gone, or not into being nice. But come on. This is exactly the kind of thing we would have made fun of together. In secret. If it had happened to somebody else, Jessica would have said, “If they always walk beside us, how come the cat footprints just stopped?”

And I’d say, “Right?”

And she’d get a curled-up grin and roll her eyes and say, “And if they are walking beside us, how can they also be in our hearts?”

And I would say, “Totally. In-side is not be-side.”

I didn’t want my feelings to be crammed into that card with everyone else's. What I wanted was the two of us laughing at stupid stuff and me getting close enough to Jessica to smell her perfect cocktail of shampoo, gum, and moisturizer without having to follow her through the office like some kind of creeper.

Apparently I thought about signing the card for too long, because Shannon looked at her fitness watch and left, saying, “Tag, you're it. Penzey gets it next.”

I sat down and wrote, Jessica, I miss you, then I stopped and realized Penzey would have the card and he’d tear me a new one over it, so I tried to re-shape the letters to say, “Jessica,” turning the “I” into “I’m” by adding an apostrophe over the space, then I scribbled out the “i” of “miss” and turned it into “sorry” by cramming in an “o” and turning the double "s"s into double “r”s. I added a “for” a little bit above and to the side, then I turned “you” into “your,” which was easy. And then I ended with “loss,” which is a little on the nose. I know that.

It was not legible. At all.

I thought about sticking the card in the shredder, but when I looked up, Shannon was pointing to Penzey’s desk and then at her watch. I walked the card over to him and threw it on his desk. “It’s for Jessica,” I said.

Penzey pulled it out of the envelope and looked at the front. “A cat would never walk on a beach,” he said.

“Why not?”

“It’s like a giant toilet to them,” he said, then he wrote, Sorry for your loss. P and handed the card back to me.

I didn’t know where to take it next, so I brought it to Shannon, who snatched the card and huffed away.

The Christmas party was in ten minutes, so I made a trip to the bathroom, and when I came out, everyone was gathered, talking about how Jessica called earlier and said she would only come back to work if we took down the Christmas tree. She said that it was just too much. She’d been having nightmares about Fannie Mae and how she had to cut the lights with a scissors to get her down.

Somebody said they couldn’t even have an emotional response for a cat named after the Federal National Mortgage Association. Everyone laughed, and somebody said maybe she could get a boy cat and name him Freddie Mac, but from the sound of it most people didn’t get the joke.

I looked around and saw all of their shiny red winter faces laughing as they stuffed treats into their mouths.

So, the next thing I did, and I didn’t take a poll or anything, was go around the table and start taking the tree down. It was artificial, so it split into three pieces. The ornaments were integrated into it, stuck onto it in a factory. Pre-made. I don’t know why anyone would even care about a tree like this. It didn’t even smell like anything, but people started shouting, “What are you doing, Charles?”

“You all told her you’re sorry for her loss, but you aren’t,” I said, wanting to yell but trying to keep it together. “You don’t give a crap about what happened to her—whatever—but you don’t have to kick her when she’s down.” I tried to push past them with the tree sections under each arm, but I got caught in the doorway.

Somebody shouted, “Hey, Grinch! You can’t just steal Christmas!”

“It’s a trigger for her now!” I shouted back. "Doesn't anybody care!”

“It’s not your tree, Charles. It belongs to all of us,” Hannah said, stepping right in my path with her hands on her hips.

I pushed past her. People started calling me out. I dropped half of the tree sections and had to stop and pick them up.

Penzey said, “Listen to all the whiny little BooHoos in BooHooville. This is classic.”

“It’s not even supposed to be a Christmas party anyway,” I yelled. "This is not inclusive, you assholes. We had a training on that! Would somebody tell Jessica it’s down? She can come back and hang out with us and get her card. She doesn’t have to be alone right now. Somebody just tell her.”

“Tell her yourself,” somebody said, and I looked up.

Jessica was standing there in front of the elevator wearing a down coat, turquoise sweatpants, and her UGGs. Her hair poked straight out of an orange stocking cap. All together, she looked so beautiful to me, like some kind of winter cheerleader for the Miami Dolphins.

“Charles, what are you doing?” Jessica said.

Penzey was taking video with his phone. “I’ve got this in 4k,” he said, smiling. “Pixel totally crushes iPhone.”

Then the elevator doors behind her opened, and the delivery cart from downstairs came out with something huge on it, underneath a sheet. Vestergaard was pushing it, and he was dressed up in some of his geek foam armor. He had a breastplate on that gave him massive steel pecs and these shinguards on his forearms with serrated edges that made him look like a cross between a cricket and bread knife. There was a shameless red velvet cape connected to the breast plate with giant buttons that looked like coiled snakes. His hair was slicked back into grooves and it was gross and shiny.

The thing under the sheet was so tall Vestergaard had to look around it, but he still pushed the cart right into the middle of everyone, scattering them to the edges of the hallway. He stopped, shook his shoulders, which made his cape flutter, and he said, “Jessica. When I heard about the tragic demise of Fannie Mae, I tried a number of times to gather my thoughts to think of something I might do something to ease your suffering.”

Everyone was too dumbfounded to stop him.

“I have known this sorrow,” he continued. "As a child I watched a red-tailed hawk carry off my kitten, Harry. I was helpless in the face of natural selection,” he said.

Jessica clasped her hands together and bit on her lower lip to keep from crying. Her eyes grew wide and soft.

Vestergaard choked up a little, then he got a hold of himself. “It reminded me of the eagles in Chapter 6 of The Hobbit, but that hawk wasn’t a rescue bird. All I could do was watch Harry disappear into the sky.”

Jessica touched Vestergaard on one of his wrist shin-guards, and he stepped back and gestured to the lump on the cart. “When viking warriors are killed in battle, the Valkyries choose the valiant and deliver them to Valhalla, to join the other Einherjar in a life of battle and feasting. They will become Odin’s army for Ragnarök. It is a warrior’s best life.”

Everybody froze where they stood. Even Penzey was motionless with his phone hovering in the air.

Vestergaard looked around, and when he was sure everybody’s eyes were on him, he yanked the sheet from the lump on the cart and revealed this giant wood castle made out of what looked like hundreds of tiny cookies. The shingled roof was curved, like an upside-down boat. On the front there was a weird cross, kind of like an X and kind of like bug horns. He gave everyone a good look, then he reached around and opened it up.

Inside there were all these tables, but they were low to the floor. Because of how the thing was split open, you could see cat faces painted on the walls and stuff people think cats like to eat: fish, chicken, cream. I squatted down and looked further inside. Way in the back, like where a priest would stand for mass, was a dog with a muzzle. It had a tiny little chain going from its tiny little collar to these tiny little rings built right into the wall.

After a minute I realized all the chairs had the outline of cat ears.

“This is a model of Cat Valhalla. Kettirholla. The Hall of the Fallen Cats,” Vestergaard said. “I mean, it's as I imagine it. We can't go there because we are human.”

Jessica took off her stocking cap and bent down to give the thing a closer look. We couldn’t see anything when she did, so we started looking at each other.

“Did you make all of this out of foam?” Jessica asked.

“Balsa.” Vestergaard said. “Mead halls were mostly made of wood. Foam works better for imitating stone,”

“And all those shields?” she asked.

“I cheated. It’s 3D printing. Normally I'd carve them by hand, but time was of the essence.”

Jessica crouched down again and moved even closer. “Are those spears up there?” she asked, pointing to the rafters.

“Yeah. It’s supposed to be for fallen warriors,” he said, then he pushed the cart toward her. “It’s for you. I mean, I know nothing can replace Fannie Mae, but maybe this might help you think of her as somebody who died in action.”

“She did,” Jessica said. “She was always climbing things and exploring. She wanted to be an outdoor cat, but, you know, that’s impossible in the city.”

“In Kettirhalla, cats do whatever they want. They’re in charge. If they attack a bird, it plays along, dies, then comes back to life, flies outside, and lets itself get caught again. Cats drink from fountains. The wet food never dries out. The sun comes in from both sides of the hall, and the sunbeams cross in the middle. And nobody can pet them unless they want it,” Vestergaard said.

“It sounds beautiful,” Jessica said.

“It’s yours. I made it for you—for Fannie Mae—but really for you. She’s already in a place like this.”

Jessica put her arms around Vestergaard and he put his arms around her. She was still in her puffy coat. The hug went on and on, and near the end of it, Vestergaard looked up at me and stared without blinking. While he did this, he moved his arms a little to give Jessica a chance to end the hug, but she just stayed there.

I hated him so much.

When the hug was over, Jessica said, “Thank you Derek,” and she pushed the cart down the hall and made space for cat heaven on top of her filing cabinet. Because it’s an open office, everybody would see it forever.

One by one, people put on their coats, said goodbye, and went home, leaving the whole party and the tree in pieces strewn around.

Outside, snow was beginning to fall, and people knew if they stayed, getting home would be a nightmare. Vestergaard left, and so did Jessica. Eventually, I was the only one in the office. I sat in the corner, alone. The sky grew dark, and the lights of the city seemed swallowed up in the snow, grey snowflakes flickering in the glow, like an old TV.

After a long time, a janitor came in with headphones on.

He didn't see me, but I could hear him mutter, “These assholes think this place just cleans itself.”

STORY:
Todd Robert Petersen is the author of Picnic in the Ruins and It Needs To Look Like We Tried. His work also has appeared in Hobart, Third Coast, Weber Studies, Cream City Review, and elsewhere. Originally from Portland, Oregon, Petersen now resides in Cedar City, Utah, where he teaches creative writing and film studies at Southern Utah University.

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ART:
Zoë Petersen is an illustrator from the Desert Southwest. She loves to knit and believes there is power in the term "grandma craft." Until Craft Grandmother can be her official title, she'll keep making pictures for stories. 

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Next Tuesday, we’ll feature an interview with Todd about this story and some other extra collaborative bonus material from Todd and Zoë!

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