My First Cats

I held the newspaper in my trembling hand. I knocked and the door opened to reveal a small love seat and shreds. The walls were bare except for an unframed photo of a very beautiful young woman. The smell of cat was strong, although they were nowhere in evidence. The once beautiful woman appeared. She squinted at me. It was my 40th birthday. I was old enough to be trusted with a cat. I sat gingerly on the shredded sofa. I held my breathe. I didn’t want to be rude. She brought one cat out and set him on my lap. He sat there as if he was welded to me. My friend Janice said, “get two they will be company for each other.” I nodded weakly. Another was brought out. I hoped Janice did not think I needed three cats. I nodded at the new cat, who looked quite mad. That seemed a nice balance. A lap cat and a mad cat. The thin woman brought the forms out. There was a folding table in the corner... I can’t read forms, I get restless. There were many. I signed them unread. Later I learned that I had agreed never to close a door to my cat or the formerly beautiful woman would send out paid assassins to remove me. Now my cats have their own apartment.

This is Sally Cookie's Paw

This is the paw Sally Cookie touched me with when I was on my way out of the no-kill animal shelter. I was looking for a cat just like Izzy, he of the heart shaped face and the kindly nature. I looked in vain. I paused before leaving, lost in the past, when she poked me. I turned, she kept her paw firmly on my arm. I was selected. She is the karma that I earned over past lifetimes spent moving furniture around perpetually aesthetically unsatisfied… Perhaps my bedroom should be a living room, perhaps a too small closet could be a full bathroom, perhaps the whole apartment should be moved closer to a coffee shop. Sally destroyed it all, one piece at a time and she did it without claws. Everything had to be recovered in naugahyde or hauled away. At best my home looks like a dental office designed by a child, at worst like Gene Hackman’s in the final scene of “The Conversation.”