Cat Speak

She opened up the door and called out, “ Honey I am home.” And the words echoed throughout a now three quarters empty apartment. The words slowly faded to nothing. Just like Ted had. Ted the yard sale, got to have the latest, never saw a piece of clutter he did not want to bring home and just drop on the floor and forever treat as if he had never seen it before; Ted. A quick vision of him dragging his stuff behind like it was a piece of toilet paper attached to his shoe came and went. She hoped it would not return. Honey of course; was not Ted. Honey was her cat. Honey was holding court in the living room window licking her fur and passing sentence on birds outside. The cat never went out, but her daydream of course was to pluck as many of those little deserts from the tree as possible. She desperately wanted to go out there; just once! Neither amused nor fully done daydreaming, the cat put forth one of those long leg stretches, taking her leg and pushing it out as if trying to touch an imaginary spool of yarn, that she can never quite reach. Ted never understood Honey. Honey never liked Ted. The cat jumped from the window and made way slowly over and rubbed against her leg. She bent over and petted the cat causing it to wince and shiver a couple of times. Then once acknowledged to shoot back across the room and resume her perch. “ Ted took a lot with him!” the cat seemed to say as it surveyed the room. Her eyes surveying the same room at the same time, and without out hearing a word, replied, “ Yeah he did. Yeah he did indeed.”

 

Desktop Tag Team

Both of her desktops were full. The oaken one in front of her and the one in her head snap flashing last night’s call from Toledo. Thus the unexpected arrival of flowers accompanied by a perplexed deliveryman with nowhere to set them down only highlighted her morning disorganization; pushing her ever so slightly toward the edge. “ Gee lady, you need to clean your desk up a bit. I will set these on the floor, sign here.” As she signed all she could hear was, “He passed away, we thought you should know.”  Flowers and Toledo in an ongoing tag team match for attention. The carnations were an innocent gesture arriving at the wrong time and their scented efforts to raise her mood and grab her attention were not working as planned. She was not worthy of smelling something so innocent. Innocence is not what it is cracked up to be. She was and still would be a victimless crime.  Then she caught site of the red and white easy button on her desk. Reaching out she pushed it;  “ That was easy, “ the button announced. Three more times in quick motion she again hit it and it responded likewise; “ that was easy!” Then without a thought she tossed it into the trash.  “ Now that was easy!” Suddenly realizing she had space on her desktop she leaned over and picked up the vase placing it in the now cleared spot on her desk. Leaning back in the chair she folded her arms behind her head and staring right at the flowers, issued them a stern verbal warning.” Not a word out of you or you gets what the button got. Got it?” The flowers sat there waiting for the call from Toledo to make the next move.