The remote control was sitting on the low table in front of me. I figured I’d at least turn it on and see what was showing, but I couldn’t find anything very interesting, even after changing the channel a couple times. I was still drowsy so the television actually ended up being a little annoying. I had brought the paperback I was reading from my room, so I sank into the couch and opened the pages.
Before reading even a single line, I looked up from the print and muttered to myself.
“It’s kind of dark.”
The curtains were closed. Naturally I would have preferred them to be open, but because I was so comfortably deep in the couch, getting up would be too troublesome. I put the book aside and reached for the remote once more. On top of the table was an ashtray and a lucky cat figure.
This lucky cat was a strange little thing. I couldn’t tell if it was poorly made or if it was purposely designed like this, but the cat almost looked like it was grinning at you. It was holding a large coin like any other lucky cat would, except instead of the usual assortment of bold phrases that might be written on it, like “great happiness,” “fantastic fortune,” or “exceeding wealth,” it only contained a single word, “lucky.”Of course, the only person who would have bought something this half-assed was my sister, but even then, I wondered where she could have possibly bought it.
The inside was hollow, and its arm was spring-loaded so you could move it in an up-and-down beckoning motion. My sister had made some alterations to add onto that feature. She tried making it so that it would shoot an infrared beam. Even though you couldn’t see it in the first place, she had still purposely rigged it so that the beam would specifically come from the eyes.
“If a cat’s going to shoot lasers, then it has to be from the eyes.”
When she told me this, I was speechless, but thinking about it more rationally it’s not like it was all that strange. After all, the remote also used infrared beams. She had essentially just put a remote inside the lucky cat.
Its receiver was connected to the fluorescent light on the ceiling. When you moved its arm to invite good fortune, an infrared beam would fly from its eyes and either illuminate or darken the room. As a result, you could take the string off the ceiling lamp and rejoice over the newly spacious surroundings. Except now, as you had to constantly keep the lucky cat there instead of the string, it continued to get in the way regardless. At least have the common decency to use a cat that was actually lovable.
The lucky cat currently sat on the other end of the table, so I reached towards it. That was the reason I even picked up the remote in the first place. In lieu of a stick, I used it to try and move the lucky cat’s arm. It looked like I should have been able to reach it, but I couldn’t no matter how hard I tried. Had I lifted myself a bit I would have probably been able to reach it, but at that point I might as well be standing. As I tried my hardest to use only my arms while avoiding moving the rest of my body like the plague, a voice called out from behind me.
