The tree limbs had the same shape as pipe cleaners, the pipe cleaners Dawn got at Michaels for some school project but the cat co-opted them, figured they were toys designed for her, batting them around on the wood floor and sometimes carrying them in her mouth like a bird. The cat, bored and unstimulated in the window sill twitching, glazed over like a psychopath daydreaming about killing, but the kids uninterested in playing with her and me on my back on the sofa looking out the window at the trees, thinking about pipe cleaners and the cat, writing about it. The cat, that vanishes for long periods of time in the garage and then just reemerges. The miracle, the cat lives on. The hawks and eagles and coyotes and wolves that hang around the periphery of our house and the cat, that survives them all. That swings between eating her wet food, her “pate” with such savagery one day, then just turns her nose up at it the next, that would likely starve to death out of sheer stubbornness, on principle. I roam the house checking the borders for the pipe cleaners, the stray pieces of hair, the bones…and put them back in a basket in the den, and watch from the sofa as the cat and dog come to study the contents, to pull something out, so I can put it back in. So I have something as I lie here to call my own, and publish, more pieces of pipe cleaner to drag across the floor and entertain myself.
In case you missed it, I have a call for content for Saturday guest posts starting this spring—details here.
Bill Pearse 
Pinklightsabre: Catnip for the soul.
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Or a scratching post, or litter box.
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I just read something about cats and boxes, how it’s part of their hunting behavior and they’re essentially bored inside so they hop into the boxes and peer out at imagined prey. Cute.
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Would the same explain why I like beer, or hiding in our den?
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I do believe cats are glazed eyed psycopaths, dreaming about killing – if they were human they’d be committed. Love that idea of the miracle life your cat leads, the untouchable nature of its existence. Funnily enough, her in the city you see a lot of laminated posters stapped to lampposts, calling for the return of missing cats. I wonder what becomes of them. I’m sure some are killed on the busy road nearby, some by urban foxes. But such is the fickle nature of the feline, I also wonder if dozens don’t congregate round the back doors of the local old ladies, blowing their pension money on fresh fish for the the darling pussy cats.
Great writing Bill
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They kill without attachment, the best kind of killing. Or for sport, to keep “sharp ” I guess.
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Oh, they like killing for sport. I remember my mum’s cats bringing us mice, voles, next door’s goldfish …
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Would be nice if they learned to clean up the rubbish or the dishes wouldn’t it?
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Haha! Yeah, though that could apply to kids as much as cats 🙂
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This makes me so sorry I have a dog and not a cat. You can say she’s a bored psychopath but I think it’s part of her charm.
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It is. She’s on my lap now with her ears flattened back as I write this.
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