The house was very, very quiet. The girlfriend had left for Tokyo four days earlier – and the cat had vanished around the same time.
There was only one serious suspect, so I called her:
“It’s what?”
“Buggered off.”
“Good!”
“You didn’t kill it?
“No – though I should have. He ruined that coat!”
“True. You never get all of the shredded sparrow out of suede.”
“You should have killed it.”
“Yeah, years ago. Listen… The bloody animal didn’t hitch a ride with you?”
“To Tokyo…?! Are you mad?!”
“It likes raw fish.”
“Believe me: I would have noticed.”
“True.”
“Are you telling me you’re missing that damn cat?”
“Well…”
One tip: if you have a conversation with your girlfriend – one you’ve just put on a plane, after protracted & teary goodbyes, and many assurances of never-ending lust, devotion and what have you…
… and she plays the ‘Do you miss…?’ gambit…
…don’t you ever even think of hesitating.
Don’t let a coat-molesting, evil if absent cat come between the moment she brings up the ‘missing’ bit and your immediate and only correct answer:
“I miss you!”
I missed my cue.
The girlfriend hung up. The cat was still gone.
Could I have killed it in my sleep? Dreaming of the girlfriend while I hacked the little brute to pieces and, still snoring, put its evil remains in the bin? A happy thought but a somewhat unlikely scenario, on the whole.
(I checked anyway: Nope, not there either.)
Well, it would probably return in its own good time – and more’s the pity. Did I miss it though?
Well, you get used to things. You know; looming volcanoes, radio talk shows, crocs in the river, TV’s Political Question Time – evil cats. They do become part of the daily cursed landscape.
Bugger.
The idea that I could actually miss that animal – even as some kind of phantom limb irritant – was deeply annoying. Hell, even in its absence it proved to be a bloody nuisance.
Ah well. Time to do some shopping.
Maybe buy some sturdy nails as well – to immobilize the cat flap? Nah. Even a drawbridge and a moat wouldn’t keep the cat out, when it finally decided it wanted to come and annoy me again. It would be much easier to lick all the barnacles off the Marie Celeste, hoover up Marley’s ghost or parcel-post the Eiffel tower to the Dalai Lama than to get rid of that nuisance of a cat.
I put on my coat, checked for my keys, picked up a very…heavy???… shopping bag…
Prrrt…
Shit.
Prrrt!!!
“So – you’re back…”
“Missed me?”
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