For no obvious reason the cat paws at the framed painting on the wall of the den in the corner behind a tall bedraggled plant and beside a Tiffany lamp. They’ve now had to take down most framed pictures from the tops of the bookcases and mantels for fear the cat would damage them. This is true of the Oaxacan wood carvings, the Navajo Kachina dolls, precious things made by the kids or now-deceased loved ones. The cat paws at the framed painting as if it’s trying to free the figure from beneath the glass: an English soldier from the 18th-century; the painting with flecks of mold giving it a vague smeared look like large raindrops on a windshield. The cat paws at the glass in an incessant fashion that makes him nervous. The painting isn’t hung well (he hung it) and thus prone to fall. The cat has knocked many things off ledges presumably out of boredom or to control its environment. The cat most likely sees their household as the cat’s, a scene from the wild where higher vantage points are advantageous. Then, after being yelled at and dissuaded the cat grows bored with the painting and returns to another popular spot, the top of the sofa by the window, where its wagging tail grazes the side of his head as he tries to read.

The cat is like having a kid in this way, that kind of toddler brain that destroys anything in its path. The cat is pure id like that. Bored too he strokes the cat’s jawline and flesh along the neck, which the cat stretches as if to beckon a scratch there. Then the cat yawns and he picks at the teeth like the strings of a guitar. The cat will alternate between sand paper licks on his fingertips and sudden violent biting. They’ve tried to discourage the biting but there’s a playful element to it that’s a bit fun until it breaks the skin. The cat sleeps about 20 hours a day. The cat isn’t a cuddler but comes into their bed around 5:04 most mornings for a faux feeding session where it purrs and chews on the pillowcase or sheets as if to suckle. The cat was taken from its mother too young and never got to experience that. The cat also has kicked the family dog out of her bed in an apparent show of strength.

Also: the cat had some kind of nasal congestion problem the vet explained as very common but like Herpes and something that would never go away. As a result the cat wheezed. Its labored breath was hard to ignore but almost soothing in its steady pattern. The cat wheezed as it pawed the glass on the framed picture. Together it made a wheezing / squeaking sound like an asthmatic squeegeeing a glass shower stall.

When the cat began its cycle of destroying household collectibles he now knew to get out the aluminum foil balls as this could distract the cat for long spans, the sound now of the foil ball puttering along the wooden floor, the cat’s wheezing, sometimes carrying the foil ball to another room, prancing as it did, or getting it stuck beneath the hall tree or sofa and wheezing again from its side, hellbent on freeing the ball.

They often argued over whether the cat was highly intelligent or not so at all.

Like clockwork the cat crapped in its litter box every other day in the dark of the morning sometime and the cold confines of the garage.

The cat was named Timmy and would be classified a DSH, or domestic shorthair, a catch-all for mutt, a non-pedigree of mixed ancestry.

The cat was not allowed outside under any circumstances and with the advent of spring this would become more challenging by the day.

Categories: Errata, Humor, musings

Tags: cats, Creative Nonfiction, free writing, humor, prose