"I understand they call you the Listener," the man said quietly. "I am," the Listener answered. "Do you want to tell me something?" "... Yes," the man replied, "but... it's difficult. Even now." "Take your time." When I was six years old, the man finally said, my mother took me to this building. I dont know what it was, or even is, assuming it's still there, which I hope to God it isnt. She took me inside, where we were met by people in white lab coats, who smiled a great deal as they asked her to fill out several forms and sign them. Finally, she told me she'd see me later and that I was to be a good boy while with these nice people. Then she left. The nice people in the white lab coats took me into a room, where I found about thirty other children, all more or less my age. It was an ordinary room, much like any kindergarden I had ever seen in my short life. Toys, chairs, books, pencils, crayons. But no windows. The people in the white coats came back a short time later. They were all wearing these… masks, and they'd brought a large box. Inside were fifteen kittens, grey tabbies and tuxedos and a few pure white ones. Immediately, everyone wanted to play with the kittens. One sidled up to me. I picked it up, and it started to purr, so we went to he far side of the room, away from everyone else, where I played with it. But elsewhere in the room, I could hear one of the kittens mewing. I looked up and saw that one of the boys had taken its tail and was holding it, keeping the animal from leaving him. The kitten pulled harder to escape, then turned and swatted the boy's hand with its claws. Outraged, the boy lifted the kitten by its tail and flung it across the room. It hit the wall. It didnt get up. Suddenly other children began torturing their animals, and the ones who didnt saw their kittens taken away... by force if necessary. Within seconds, the room was filled with screaming children and howling animals, and I huddled against the wall, amazed that none of the nice people in the white coats had come to stop this. Instinctively, I knew that if I didnt protect my little friend, he too would be harmed, so I quickly hid under a pile of winter coats behind a row of chairs, and I held my kitten tightly against me, praying that no one would hear him or notice me, even as the uproar continued unabated. I stayed under there for hours, long after the room had gone silent. Finally, I came out from under the coats and looked at the carnage around me. The people in the white coats were gone. Somehow, I must have realized everyone and everything in that room was dead. One boy had a pencil jammed deep into his eye. Another had had his skull bashed in by a chair leg. I found one kitten literally torn in half in what must have been a terrifying game of tug of war. Cautiously, with my kitten still clutched close, I made my way past the dead to the door and quietly knocked. Immediately, a man in a white lab coat greeted me with a big smile as he escorted me to the lobby, where my mother sat waiting. There were other women there as well, all patiently waiting. The man in the white coat tried to take my kitten away, and I refused, because I knew that if he got it back, it would be killed. My mother told me to let go of it, and I screamed NO! so much that the man, smile fixed in place, told me to take it home. At my mother's insistence, I told him thank you. "What an... unusual story," the Woman with the Shaved Head said later. "Did he tell you anything else?" The Listener paused. "For weeks afterwards, he hid the kitten from his mother so she couldnt return it while he was in school. Every night it slept in his bed with his arm as tightly protective around it as that first day. He kept the animal for almost two decades, till its passing, always putting its welfare well ahead of his own." "What do you think it all means?" the Woman asked. The Listener shrugged.