A little feline inspired flash fiction this week…
Things are afoot in the manse. Mother has been keeping odd hours and rearranging the furniture. Strangers come and go at odd times of the day, and a four-legged fiend haunts my dreams… what does it all mean?
It began several weeks ago. I had just returned from a successful hunting trip where I had caught and contained a shrew, already quite dead, and presented it as a gift to my dearest mother at the threshold of our great home. As usual, she rejected my present and tossed it unceremoniously over the walls. Typical. I put an unusual amount of effort into ridding the environs of undead rodents, but is she grateful? Not at all.
But I digress… after watching my gift sail through the air into the fields beyond, I decided to take a nap. All this being generous had quite worn me out. I retired to my state rooms only to find that the furniture was not where it usually was. I asked Mother about it but she did not deign to reply. She swanned out of the house, got into her carriage and left. With no word of when she might return, I returned to my rooms and slept.
I awoke much later to a horrifying sound. Something was shuffling around downstairs. I could hear its clumsy ambling resound through the stairwells. It’s eldritch grunting froze my bones! And it was drinking from my bowl! I carefully descended the staircase and peeked around the corner. I could hear Mother in the parlour making the most hideous of sounds and an odious snuffling noise approached the entry way. Terrified, I ran back up to my room and hid under the bed. Mother was obviously done for so there was no point trying to save her.
I remained there for what felt like days, but eventually my growling stomach got the better of me. By now the creature must have left or died because I heard no more strange sounds coming from below. I did not really want to see Mother’s mutilated form, but as my kibble bowl is in the parlour I didn’t see that I had much choice.
Carefully and quietly, I crept down the stairs and into the kitchen. The house was silent. I chanced a quick look into the room. Mother sat quite alive and apparently unharmed on the chaise longue, reading a book! Honestly, there I was worried for her very mortality and she didn’t even bother to come upstairs and tell me she wasn’t dead! Typical human. No thought for their feline masters at all.
I sauntered into the room, ignoring her entirely and circled around the chair to go to my kibble spot atop my scratchy pole. I froze. There, in the middle of the room, just in front of the fireplace, was a bed. It was not my bed, oh no. It was much too large for that. Memories flooded my mind. A sister, lost many years ago to some terrible disease.
“No!” I screeched, turning to my mother with beseeching eyes, “Mother, please no!”
Mother looked up her from book at my plaintive cry.
“Hello Finnegan. What’s up?”
“Mother, please, tell me we’re not getting another dog!”