Watching

My 20 pounds of housecat, Splash, has been spending his summer nights outdoors.  As a daily ritual, I usher him inside and feed him first thing in the morning.  Then I make my coffee.  I have noticed considerable change in him since my other cat, Carmel, passed a couple months ago.

He has become decidedly needy.

It’s almost as if he wants to be permanently attached to me for the first hour or so he is in the house. If I sit, he quickly finds a way into my lap.  If I wander from room to room, he follows.

Not today.  Splash is a bit out of sorts this morning.   We have houseguests (that girl’s friends) who overnighted.  They are just now beginning to stir in the spare bedrooms.  Splash is presently hunched in a corner of the living room where he can watch down the hallway.

If one of the guests makes a false move he will be there to see it.

And if one of them emerges from the second spare bedroom with the vacuum cleaner, intent on murdering him with it, he will be off to the utility room and under the dryer in an instant.

--Mitchell Hegman