THE UNLIMITED FREEDOM CASTLE

When the worldwide economic collapse reached the bottom of its bottomless pit, and then kept going, causing every nation of the world to be in debt to entities which did not exist and who were, themselves, in debt to the giant financial black hole in the middle of the acidic Atlantic Ocean, all seemed lost…but there was still hope.

When Global Warming became Climate Change, which was stupid so they changed it back to Global Warming, and soon Global Hottening, and then Earth Melt-Fest, and finally Holy Christ Everything Is On Fire and Simultaneously Under Water, the people of our Planet screamed in terror, and while their vocal chords were scarred their voices were not gone, and in their blackened lungs was cradled a tiny pearl of optimism. We would not go down without a fight.

When the world was at its most bleak, when poisonous rain clouds grew ever darker and giant volcanoes filled the sky with lightning and lava, and even regular people wanted to commit suicide because life was truly meaningless, all was not lost.

No. The world did not lose its hope until it became evident that the population of domestic kittens was dwindling to numbers so low that scientists were predicting extinction within a matter of weeks. This was when the candle in our hearts was blown out.

It is said that when the world heard the news of future kitten extinction every human being, as well as most intelligent primates, immediately imagined a world without fluffy balls of love and simultaneously began weeping. This is the only known case of 24 billion human beings crying at the same time about the exact same thing. Even babies were crying about it, only at the time they could not know they were crying about it, but years later when asked about their most traumatic memories, 13 out of 10 people who were babies at the time said they remembered the vivid image of thousands of burning kittens jumping off buildings and really high counter tops. Some people even started throwing up and crying at the same time.

Young, adorable kittens were the only form of pure joy left in our dying world. Drug supplies had run out, sex was impossible, and ice cream had been reduced to a sticky stain on the linoleum floor of every sheltered kitchen in the world. In ashen streets throngs of people, sometimes numbering in the thousands, could be seen crowding around a single kitten, waiting silently for it to meow or curl up into a ball and nap the cutest nap you’d ever seen. Interaction with a kitten, even from a distance, could produce up to a week of pleasant memories, helping to ward off even the worst of depressions.

But the silent waiting did not last long; people were losing hope by the handful. Survival instincts seized the masses and selfishness became modus operandi. Kittens were the new gold. A kitten could get you a seat in The White House, or Buckingham Palace, but in actuality it didn’t matter – both had been burned down, plundered and desecrated, spray-painted over with the human race’s dying words: “1 Kitten = 1 Thousand Days of Happy”.

Rumors spread of secret circles and lone, mysterious men searching for the remaining kittens in hopes of creating singular utopias, living out their last dying days in a kitten-induced state of happiness. Several countries began broadcasting still-images and videos of kittens on every screen available. Times Square was no longer a bastion of consumerism, but instead a giant 6th grade kitten collage plastered in the middle of Manhatten. The sights were beautiful, but the underlying message was haunting: Our last hope was disappearing.

Day by day the kitten population was dwindling. Those fur-balls left wandering their ruinous homelands were fewer and farther between; while those held hostage in the dark caves and solitary basements of the most powerful men were nothing more than pornography, their captors unwilling to negotiate for even a single session of kitty conception. It seemed as if the Earth would die a slow, painful, and kitten-less death.

And then he appeared.

Known only as “Saint Kitty”, this lone, shadowy “super-hero” burst forth from wherever it is that he was hiding and brought with him a revolution, nay, a REVELATION of ecstasy, of unbridled joy, of Heaven on Earth. In the only known picture (above) that exists of “Saint Kitty” he can be seen in the way that any witness to his march would describe him: a suave, fucking-awesome badass, hovering over a sea of kittens, with endless lightning sparkling in his sunglasses, and brandishing his silver “Kitten Protector” for every cowardly Judas to see. With his horde of felines bequeathed to our sad lands, he disappeared, never to be heard from again.

So it is, that on this day, Saint Kitty’s Day, we celebrate our return to prosperity. Formerly St. Valentine’s Day, February 14th was replaced with St. Kitty’s day when everyone realized that Valentine’s Day had become useless, because people no longer enjoyed the company or relationships to be had with their own species. As we wait for science to figure out how to combine Kitty DNA with our own, we can only hope that enough of us are still alive to pro-create with those creatures that we truly love.

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