3 September 2022
chapter one: Monsters in the Nest
It’s bad enough He’s been up all night, wasting perfectly good boxes by putting useless stuff in them and closing them up. He didn’t even come to bed, and come daylight He’s still up wasting boxes and then, MONSTERS show up and suddenly they’re rampaging through the nest trying to kill and eat me, but He lets me out the back so I can hide under the shed when EVEN MORE monsters show up and they start hauling our stuff out and putting it into their big box in the front. During the morning’s assault, He comes down a couple of times, offering me a little kibble and faucet juice, but no egg slop or milk lickin’s. Jerk.
chapter two: The Bad Bottle Smell
Later in the day the monsters finally gave up and left, taking their giant box with them. He called me up from the shed, offering food, proper scritches, and apologies on the back deck, none of which were nearly adequate to compensate me for this latest offense. I decided it was safe enough to check out the damage inside, so I told Him, and He let me in. It stank. It stank like some of those bottles that He and That Woman sometimes brandish when they’re running around the nest. And ALL OF MY STUFF WAS GONE! He opened the Door That Never Opens, and it seemed to smell a little better in there. It smelled a bit more like Him, and That Woman, and a few other strange animals, but not nearly so much like the bad bottles.
He fell across the emergency back-up bed and stayed there until the next morning. I slept with Him off and on, ate a bit of what He left for me, visited the Dirt Patch (which at least didn’t smell like any other cats!), and looked for our stuff, but the rest of the nest just continued to stink, so mostly I slept with Him. That’s not so bad. The bed smells like us, and it has our quilt on it. He may have let most of our stuff get away, but at least we’ve still got our nest, food, faucet juice, a Dirt Patch that smells like my butt, and our own quilt. And Him. I guess we can get along.
chapter three: The Big Bouncing Box
Daylight again, and He’s up already and feeding me and now it looks like He’s going to lock me in for days again. His arms are full of stuff as he goes out, and I can hear Him opening and closing the Big Box outside. After a while He takes away my food and faucet juice and my Dirt Patch and then He picks me up and carries me out and puts me in the big box on top of our quilt, then He gets in and stares out the window while the box bounces around. I don’t know what He’s thinking. We just sit in that box and bounce, and He’s got that stinking Dirt Patch in here with us. And not two steps away are my food dishes. What does He expect me to do? Eat and drink right next to that? Or use it while this stupid box keeps bouncing? What’s wrong with Him!?
After a while, the box stops bouncing, and He gets out and it smells different. I crawl into a nice dark place and try to ignore him, but he comes back and starts talking to me and moving stuff around back here until He finally stares at me and makes noise with His face. Then He gets back in, and we start bouncing again. He does this several times during the day, and I always try to relocate so He can’t bug me, but He always stares me in the face and makes noise until He gets tired of it and sits back down and stares out the window and we go back to bouncing.
chapter four: The Evil One
FINALLY the box stops bouncing for good, and He drags me out of it into a new world that smells too strange, and then into a nest that smells of monsters and CAT! Because He wouldn’t stop that bouncing box long enough for me to crawl out and pee in piece, as He hoists me into that strange stinking nest I piss down His leg and onto the floor in an attempt to counter all of the foreign smells and make it a little homier. He doesn’t seem to notice, offering not a word of thanks for my contribution, but deposits me on the floor of this strange nest and I quickly find refuge in a dark place. While I’m sheltered, the Evil One comes to talk to me and tells me to get out of her nest and I try to explain that I would love to, but she doesn’t seem to care what I have to say.
Eventually she goes away. Then He comes back with our quilt and lays it beside my hiding place where He so rudely saw me while I was being invisible! Then He puts down a little food and water. The quilt smells better than the rest of the nest, so that helps a little, but I am still not happy, and not about to eat any of that kibble. I watch as the Evil One eats it, then licks herself just a step or two away from my safe place. In addition to the Evil One, the nest is full of other monsters and He and they spend the night laughing and shouting and just making me miserable. After a while it quiets down, and as I hear Him snoring in the distance, I go to sleep too.
chapter five: Back in the Bouncing Box
After making me endure this horror all night, He takes away my dishes and our quilt, then He scoops me back up and puts me back in the big box with the Dirt Patch still in it. I haven’t shit all night, or all day yesterday, nor eaten. But while he’s back in that other nest shouting with the monsters, I think I can manage a token protest turd right in the middle of our quilt. THAT’ll show ‘im! When He came back He picked it up, got rid of it, and then got into the box and stared out the window some more while we resumed bouncing. All day. Again. Sure, with occasional breaks when He’d get out into a different smelling world. But mostly, we just sat in the box. He must have gone insane. It seemed, as it was getting dark again, and we were STILL in the box, that this might be what our lives would be from there on out.
After the dark had settled firmly outside, He started to get out more, shout for a while, get back in and we’d bounce a little, but very soon He’d get back out and shout some more. So I started shouting too, trying to explain to Him that I was getting fed up with this whole situation and we should just get out and run around for a while. Maybe kill some string or sticks. This box is boring. And the Dirt Patch is too close to my dishes! I must have gotten through to Him, because He finally did stop, and he carried me into yet another strange nest, but at least this one didn’t smell of cat, only of the monsters who were already there. He deposited me in a corner of the nest and soon had brought in my dishes and our quilt and the Dirt Patch, but at least everything was properly separated and not all crowded together like they were when we were in the big box.
chapter six: The New Monsters and Biggins, Beef Biggins
Things seem to be settling down a little. He’s been feeding me regularly again, and the Dirt Patch doesn’t constantly bounce like it did in the big box outside, so that’s no longer an issue, and our quilt still smells like us, and this nest has new dark corners to explore. We’ve been here for days, and the new monsters mostly leave me alone. The quiet one is nice. I’ve brushed against his leg a couple times and he properly scritched me between the ears, but mostly I try to keep my distance. The other one is loud and shrieky, and she’s lunged at me a couple of times, but lately she’s been a bit quieter, but can still get a little shrieky sometimes. He and the quiet one and the shrieky one often gather in the center of the nest to make noise and clouds, and sometimes He gives me a little dry grass, which is nice to roll in. And sometimes, when He is gone all night, the shrieky one gives me food.
When He and the monsters are gone, I like to sit on the back of the couch and watch out the window. There are cats and other animals and monsters living just outside, a short sprint from this nest. Sometimes He catches me looking. He spoofs me as I watch the handsome cat. “Biggins, Beef Biggins,” he says as I watch the agile tom stalking his prey and I imagine that I am hunting with him. “Biggins, Beef Biggins,” He laughs and scritches my head and goes away.
chapter seven: The New Nest
I don’t know what His problem is. It seems we were all getting along fine. The new monsters turned out to be not so bad. Never once did either of them ever attempt to kill me or eat me, and they even scritch and feed me now and then. But one night, for no reason, He and the shrieky one take away my dishes and our quilt and the Dirt Patch and then put me in the big box. They both get in and stare out the front window while we bounce for actually not very long, then we’re getting out and he’s carrying me down this strange corridor smelling of monsters and cats and other animals and into this weird box, then down another stinking corridor and finally into ANOTHER NEW NEST, but again, this one doesn’t smell like any cats at all, barely a trace of monster, with yet a comforting whiff of Him. And the Dirt Patch.
Day after day He brings back more of our stuff that He had hidden somewhere, and the new nest smells more and more like us and our stuff, and I’ve got more secret caves all the time. Eventually even our bed returns, and I can sleep on top of it, with or without him, or hide underneath it from monsters. Because He still lets monsters in, but not very often, except mostly that shrieky monster, and sometimes the quiet one, too, but generally it’s just Him and me.
And about time, too!
17 November 2022
Au revoir, Tichelle LaBelle. Bon voyage, mon pauvre petit chat.