Apr. 9th, 2025 08:42 pm
window cat
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catboymettatonwrote this while brainstorming for creative writing class
It wasn’t fair, Alexis thought, that it was sunny. It was sunny, a pleasant 65 degrees, with a light, gentle breeze and the perfect balance of gray and blue in the sky. Birds were singing, squirrels were frolicking, the trees were opening up their tender pink petals. It looked like a scene out of the impressionist exhibit at the art museum.
A day like this was not supposed to be the worst day of your life.
Ze hadn’t woken up with any sort of feeling that something was amiss. Ze had woken up right on time, eaten a nice breakfast, made it to class five minutes early, like it was any other regular Thursday. Thursday, the October of the week, not a day when your life was supposed to be upended.
And yet, one by one, the pieces had come crashing down.
Hir phone was an iron weight in the pit of hir backpack. If ze didn’t look at it, ze could pretend that none of it was real. Ze’d considered chucking it into the river, but that was money ze didn’t have and questions ze didn’t want to answer and then ze would lose hir beautifully curated gallery of cat reaction memes. Perhaps ze should back this up onto a flash drive in case another such scenario arose.
Another scenario would not arise. It was too late. The only good thing about rock bottom was that it wouldn’t get worse. It couldn’t get worse. This was it.
Ze felt as though hir harness had been cut, hir harness that ze didn’t know ze’d been wearing, suspending hir above whatever this deep, dark pit of spikes was.
But it wasn’t deep, it wasn’t dark, and the clouds shifted and a beam of light slammed hir in the face.
Ugh.
In a proper story, it would be dark and cloudy and thundering and then ze’d get drenched by a rainstorm because ze didn’t have an umbrella, or if ze didn’t have an umbrella, ze’d get struck by lightning, and that would be the end, and hir phone would get waterglogged and die and ze’d never have to answer any of them, ze’d never have to type another word, and then they’d all gather around hir grave and cry and sob until another rainstorm formed about how wrong they all were and how they never should’ve been so cruel.
But this was real life, and so nothing of the sort occurred.
A squirrel ran past, some sort of nut in hand, and skittered up a tree. Alexis followed it, lifting hir eyes from the ground for the first time in the past few minutes or possibly hours. And then ze saw it.
Basking in the warmth of the cruel, traitorous sunbeam lay an orange cat, all sprawled out on a cushy, soft cat tree.
Ze moved towards the window as if in a trance.
The cat opened its eyes and began to lick at a paw. It hadn’t noticed the awkward, stumbling human. Its focus lay solely on the five little pink beans being targeted by its tongue.
The cat didn’t know about emails, or graduate school, or partners, or midterms, or any of the rest.
And suddenly, Alexis felt selfish. Who was ze, to decide that the weather ought to be stormy? Who was ze to decide that today was the worst of all days, that the world would never be the same?
The cat moved on to cleaning its ears. It squinched its eyes shut and ducked its head. Alexis was as close as ze could get now, nothing between them but a little patch of grass that ze wanted to cross but didn’t for fear of the neighbors getting the wrong idea. The cat was very, very dedicated to its haircare routine.
And then it finished and stood, pulling back its hips into a long, deep stretch. It yawned and its lovely, soft face opened up into a cavern of knives, hairbrush-tongue extending down the middle. It relaxed into a seated posture, gave its lips a lick, and opened its eyes.
Its eyes were chartreuse and sparkled like two polished peridots. It stared out the window, settling on Alexis’s brown topaz gaze.
Cautiously, ze slow blinked.
The cat stared back. Then it yawned again, smaller this time, and then flopped over, settling into another pose for luxuriating.
It was a perfect afternoon to be a cat in a window. It was a perfect day for napping in the sun.
It wasn’t fair, Alexis thought, that it was sunny. It was sunny, a pleasant 65 degrees, with a light, gentle breeze and the perfect balance of gray and blue in the sky. Birds were singing, squirrels were frolicking, the trees were opening up their tender pink petals. It looked like a scene out of the impressionist exhibit at the art museum.
A day like this was not supposed to be the worst day of your life.
Ze hadn’t woken up with any sort of feeling that something was amiss. Ze had woken up right on time, eaten a nice breakfast, made it to class five minutes early, like it was any other regular Thursday. Thursday, the October of the week, not a day when your life was supposed to be upended.
And yet, one by one, the pieces had come crashing down.
Hir phone was an iron weight in the pit of hir backpack. If ze didn’t look at it, ze could pretend that none of it was real. Ze’d considered chucking it into the river, but that was money ze didn’t have and questions ze didn’t want to answer and then ze would lose hir beautifully curated gallery of cat reaction memes. Perhaps ze should back this up onto a flash drive in case another such scenario arose.
Another scenario would not arise. It was too late. The only good thing about rock bottom was that it wouldn’t get worse. It couldn’t get worse. This was it.
Ze felt as though hir harness had been cut, hir harness that ze didn’t know ze’d been wearing, suspending hir above whatever this deep, dark pit of spikes was.
But it wasn’t deep, it wasn’t dark, and the clouds shifted and a beam of light slammed hir in the face.
Ugh.
In a proper story, it would be dark and cloudy and thundering and then ze’d get drenched by a rainstorm because ze didn’t have an umbrella, or if ze didn’t have an umbrella, ze’d get struck by lightning, and that would be the end, and hir phone would get waterglogged and die and ze’d never have to answer any of them, ze’d never have to type another word, and then they’d all gather around hir grave and cry and sob until another rainstorm formed about how wrong they all were and how they never should’ve been so cruel.
But this was real life, and so nothing of the sort occurred.
A squirrel ran past, some sort of nut in hand, and skittered up a tree. Alexis followed it, lifting hir eyes from the ground for the first time in the past few minutes or possibly hours. And then ze saw it.
Basking in the warmth of the cruel, traitorous sunbeam lay an orange cat, all sprawled out on a cushy, soft cat tree.
Ze moved towards the window as if in a trance.
The cat opened its eyes and began to lick at a paw. It hadn’t noticed the awkward, stumbling human. Its focus lay solely on the five little pink beans being targeted by its tongue.
The cat didn’t know about emails, or graduate school, or partners, or midterms, or any of the rest.
And suddenly, Alexis felt selfish. Who was ze, to decide that the weather ought to be stormy? Who was ze to decide that today was the worst of all days, that the world would never be the same?
The cat moved on to cleaning its ears. It squinched its eyes shut and ducked its head. Alexis was as close as ze could get now, nothing between them but a little patch of grass that ze wanted to cross but didn’t for fear of the neighbors getting the wrong idea. The cat was very, very dedicated to its haircare routine.
And then it finished and stood, pulling back its hips into a long, deep stretch. It yawned and its lovely, soft face opened up into a cavern of knives, hairbrush-tongue extending down the middle. It relaxed into a seated posture, gave its lips a lick, and opened its eyes.
Its eyes were chartreuse and sparkled like two polished peridots. It stared out the window, settling on Alexis’s brown topaz gaze.
Cautiously, ze slow blinked.
The cat stared back. Then it yawned again, smaller this time, and then flopped over, settling into another pose for luxuriating.
It was a perfect afternoon to be a cat in a window. It was a perfect day for napping in the sun.
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