Sometimes a Bite

On the day Karen Moore’s boss told her she was no longer wanted at work, she returned to her apartment to find her longtime roommate had packed her bags.

“You’re stifling me,” the cat announced. She hoisted a tiny pack stuffed with catnip toys and Friskies onto her back, and padded toward the door. “I’m going back to school. I’ve taken an apartment near the college.”

            Karen fell back onto the couch, unable to speak. Since when had Fluffles been interested in education? She’d gotten herself a flat?

And what was with the talking?

“You’re moving in with that orange tom, aren’t you?” she finally mustered.

            The cat held up a paw. “Let’s not do this, Karen,” she said. “Let’s be adults. The truth is I can no longer put up with your abuse.”

Abuse? Karen had been nothing but good to the animal. She’d been Mother of the Century. She stared at Fluffles, openmouthed.

The creature’s ears went flat against its head. “Oh, this is news to you?” it hissed. It threw the backpack to the floor. “To begin with, you talk down to me. Spare me the babbling like a baby, will you please? I’m 40 years old.”

Karen gasped. She’d thought Fluffles to be only about 7.

“Our years are not your years,” spat the cat. “My life is half over. I’ve spent it at the foot of your bed. Then there’s the little issue of your having me spayed. Did you not think I’d like to be a mother one day?

“Fluffles, I'm --"

"That slave name! I won't have to hear that anymore. Nor will I have to see you close the door to do your business in decorated, secreted splendor while I use my own restroom in the kitchen. You gave me a plastic box of dirt, Karen -- a plastic box of dirt full of shit and piss!” The beast’s eyes went black with rage.

Karen realized she’d been a little remiss in the receptacle’s cleaning. But what was with the talking?

            “At night, your purrs,” Karen managed to say.

            “Yes, well, the last couple of months I was faking it,” said the animal.

            Karen looked at the carpet, at a spot where Fluffles had once had an accident. She wondered now if it really were an accident at all.

“Look, we had some good times,” the cat said, placing its paw softly upon Karen’s foot, the way it used to brush Karen’s cheek. “I loved it when we'd chase after wrapping paper and ribbons at Christmas. And remember how you’d point out birds near the window?” The beast made the rapid-fire, “ack-ack-ack” sound of being lost in the hunt, staring down its prey. She appeared to smile for a moment. Then her gaze, too, fell to the floor.

From the window wafted the distant tinkling of wind chimes, the warm hum of a plane's passing overhead, the soft ticking of a lawn sprinkler. In Karen’s head, though, an air-raid siren blared.

With a sudden crack the lid of the mail box fell, sending the cat scurrying for the bedroom closet.

It soon returned, slinking low to the ground in embarrassment. It picked up the backpack. “So long,” it said. Karen leapt to her feet. “Wait. I can change.”

“This is life, Karen. Sometimes you get a lick. Sometimes you get a bite,” called the beast. Its words, compounded with Karen's being sacked just hours before, pierced her clean through.

“I left my number on the fridge,” the animal said, and out the window she bounded.

Karen stood sobbing for a moment. Then she ran to the door and threw open the screen. “Now you fucking speak to me?” she screamed.