You probably know. I have a famous relative, a big name in theoretical physics.

What it meant for all of us Schrodingers is: we really could never have pets, especially not cats. But other pets were just as bad.

"Schrodinger's dog!" "Schrodinger's parrot!"

It was just easier to avoid them entirely.

Our name gave us recognition, but at a price. The hypothetical cat was going to haunt us forever.

Times had moved on. Experimentation was THE trend in physics. Sitting down and running differential equations. Keeping an open mind and what the new equations might imply.. That was a thing of the past.

They recognized the Schrodinger name in academic circles, but it was not worth much.

Most of the family sought nameless occupations. Jobs with name tags were problematic.

I alone, of all my family, sought a career in higher education. I could have well-reasoned discussions in hypothetical topics (even the more modern discoveries).

I was not as gifted as my famous relative.

I only had the option to work at new and attention seeking College. One funded by tech billionaires and online influencers.

It was hard, of course. The jokes about cats have a more painful cousin. Intelligent professors seeking to make their own name.

I was never going to succeed in academics. No one would take me seriously, and I understood it.

I had one vocation available to me. I could write to colleges across the world (asking for cast off physics test equipment). That was something I could do. My Schrodinger name carried that much clout.

Even though I was ill-equipped to compete in the new experimental physics realm, I could clearly understand the older experiments.

I will keep the tech limited. I will be concise. I followed a hunch. I used the old equipment to test a hypothesis on 'Time' itself.

I wrote a clear and detailed paper on the plan. Printed it and told no one. Leaving the paper in my office.

If it worked, my borrowed technology would create concentric spheres with a time gradient. Time moving fastest at the epi-center.

By my calculations, I might float forward in time about one hour.

I did not expect it to work, which was why I did not tell anyone..

The experience made me nauseous. It left me cringing at the bottom of a convex depression in bedrock.

Staring upwards into a blue sky.

A blue sky alarmingly filling with fast arriving flying saucers. Saucers that I would say used.. some type of warp technology.. some type of antigravity.

Saucers whose creators and occupants were telepathic.

They drew my mind into theirs. Their collective mind.

"We found you!"

"We found you alive. That is so nice."

"When you vanished, it simply vexed us.. consumed us in our attention."

"We had placed a tracker on you. A red marker so we could consider your life."

"Felinity be praised!"

It was the start of an awkward war. The Space Cat Invasion of Earth.

Now that the space cats had me in their paws, they were not inclined to let me go.

It had been just too much for me to vanish like that.

The space cats sitting high in their towers on their home planet. Watching the red tracker they had place on me. When it vanished, it unified them in their focus.

When my tracker appeared again, they pounced at once.

I never had a cat as a pet, but I think I understood it.