author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Notes from the author:

When our two cats, over the space of a year, descended one after the other into two separate medical hells, we learned a lot about trust. We learned how implicitly and how totally our pets trusted us, how they never doubted that we were their home and their safety. They knew, in a way that went beyond fact and faith, that we would make everything all right. Maybe not now. But eventually. Inevitably. That's who they saw in us.

Such impossible, undemanding patience. It's weird, right? Every morning of their healthy lives, the moment an alarm clock sounded they'd be on the bed, yowling, crying, urgent, afraid that food would go extinct if we didn't feed them now now NOW! But at the end of all things, from the depths of their pain and sickness, they simply looked up at us and waited, with every certainty, for us to put their sun back up in the sky.

I don't think they ever realized we'd failed them. Maybe we never really did.

There is a slice of pecan pie on the table. Next to it is a small blue teapot whose handle is missing; only two protrusions of jagged raw pottery remain. In the absence of a handle, a threadbare handkerchief folded several times lengthwise lies next to the teapot, ready to protect the hand of whoever will pour the tea. The handkerchief has performed this duty many times, as witnessed by the multitude of overlapping stains. But there is no one here right now to pour the tea.

There is an orange cat waiting beside the table. It's a scraggly cat, a retired veteran of the constant wars fought in service alleys and in the streets. Both its ears are ripped, torn, and bitten. It's missing a toe from its right forepaw. Despite its rough youth, or perhaps in consideration thereof, this is a cat who knows when it's teatime. The hiss of a kettle approaching boil signals that a can of tuna-flavored cat food will be opened soon, its contents spooned out onto a chipped porcelain plate. But there is no one here right now to open the can.

The kettle goes from a distant hiss to the roar of an approaching train. Steam billows up and washes the cabinets. Years of this daily ritual have taken their toll on the wood, as witnessed by the slight ripple along the bottom edges of the cabinet doors. The train arrives in the station; the kettle begins to scream. But there is no one here right now to take the kettle off the stove.

Alarmed by the kettle's shriek, the cat flees. Its panic takes it around the corner and into the bedroom. It slinks under the bed, where it knows itself at least protected from the gaze of predators. It huddles back by the wall, in the dark, alone. The shape of its world is all wrong. Its human is missing. And it is not alone right now underneath the bed.

This has been an excerpt from the Friday Fictionette for March 13, 2015. The fictionette appears in its entirety (848 words) at Patreon and is available to all Patrons pledging at least $1/month.

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