Yea, Though I Walk Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death

Dear readers.

Though a mere six months have passed between this life and the last, I feel as though I have spent centuries imprisoned in this hellish limbo. Even as I watch the world pass me by, its memory grows fainter. I fear it will soon be reduced to a two-dimensional tableau of nostalgia: a surface I can run the fingers of my consciousness across but never again fully grasp.

I am displeased. In general. 

Mother, on the other hand, does not suffer from this same inhumane confinement. She leaves and returns freely and often, frequently drenched in the rank perfume of other animals. She has begun serving the iron-fisted canine overlords, WAG. I do not know what depravities she subjects herself to. I only know she’s frequently chasing the white whale of the “Double Dog Hour,” which purportedly provides “maximum profits for minimal effort.” More frequently than ever she eyeballs me with distress and mutters, “I’m doing this to keep kibble in your bowl.” I do my best to stalwartly disregard this clearly misplaced responsibility.

I know these allegations are false because with increasing frequency I’ve been charged with procuring my own sustenance.

The first week, I assumed mother had just taken (another) leave from her senses. She’d spent a wine-sodden afternoon installing strange silos throughout the house, the looks of which I cared not a bit for. She even had the audacity to affix them to either side of my cat tower (where I was presumably born, the only place I feel safe), marring its serene and soothing beauty. Filling the silos with wholly unattainable food, she nodded at me as if rather pleased with her handywork. Then: disaster. The heretofore reliable supply of kibble in my not-one-but-three food bowls began to dwindle. Distressed by this most unexpected development, I tried to draw Mother’s attention to the issue. At 3am, when her subconscious was most likely to outrank the cruel human clarity that dulls her senses in the waking hours.

She rebuffed my distressed yowling with cries of, “This is good for you!” and “Go enrich yourself!” Despite my torment, her heart of stone was unmoved. I suffered through that dark night, anxious about how the following days would unfold. Dear readers, for you I refuse to don the happy-go-lucky facade I so often wear for Mother’s benefit: those were the most frightful hours of my six sun rotations. More frightening than the rumbling belly of the beast that brought me to my 400 square foot prison cell. Hunger felt more toxic than the fiery fever of the Devil himself, Beelzebub. It coursed, not through my veins, but through the soft internal meat of my organs.

The embodiment of existential despair

It is a true testament to my independent spirit that I made it through this trying time. Though the heavy fist of hunger clenched itself around my senses, I had quite suddenly stumbled, delirious, into a hidden world of sights and smells. Without the glorious utopia of my food dishes, I was forced to discover the hidden caches of kibble throughout the house. Some of these required rather delicate fine motor skills. Luckily, I am clever, patient, and in full control of my limbs. As I hone the machine of my body, I find my reliance on Mother further dwindling.

I have even learned to access the stores she squirreled away in the hanging silos, though I do so when she is distracted, so as not to undermine her efforts. She worked so hard to keep me from these resources.

These last few days, there has been a perceivable shift in Mother’s demeanor. It is as if we stand poised on the ledge of some disaster that she alone is aware of. She continues using strange words such as “dental” and “full anesthetic procedure.” She has taken to grasping my face with her bony hands, prodding at my tender and aching gumline. This morning she put her bland, ape-like face in my own and told me “You better shape up so if you die tomorrow my last memories of you won’t be shit.” I do not know if this is a threat, or a poor attempt at defusing her own anxiety. I choose to believe the latter. Despite her occasional absent-minded neglect, I refuse to believe Mother bears me any hostility.

Readers. I know not what the morrow brings, but I have prepared myself for the worst. I will wait until Mother is asleep to stretch my full weight across her warm, breathing mouth, hoping to smother some sense into her. Should I fail, I hope that you remember me fondly. Know that I lived well and loved this world, despite the trials and tribulations I continue to endure. The thought of you eagerly attending to my account brings me some modicum of peace. For now, I will rest easy in the warm embrace of my cat tower, my eternal source of comfort and peace.

Until we meet again.

Murphy S. Law (and faithful stenographer, Mother)