I know my cat wants to kill me. He looks at me like: I want to kill you.
His eyes narrow. His imaginary eyebrows furrow. His tail slides back
and forth. He’s ready to pounce. He watches me…waits for a mistake,
a sign of weakness, a point of attack. His eyes burn deep into my
soul, penetrates my very being and shakes my already fragile belief in
God. “God, why have you forsaken me?”
He sees me as a piece of meat. Thank God he needs me to give him cat
food. According to the “vet,” he has “food allergies,” so he can only
eat “one type of kibble” or “the hair on his legs will fall off.”
Really? Really?! Well, I think he just wants the expensive,
only-found-at-vets good stuff. If he could feed himself kibble, I
would be an immediate goner instead of an eventual goner. If he ever
learns there are more tasty alternatives to kibble, I am doomed.
I can do nothing; there is nothing I can do. I can’t stop it. I
can’t kick him out because when I adopted him I promised I would care
for him, no matter what, for better or worse. Like a wedding vow
except very one-sided. They said he was the friendliest cat at the
shelter and would sit on the volunteer’s lap. Well, he never sat on
my lap. Never. Not even close. And the friendliness was a
manipulative scheme to escape his tiny cage. Of course. He wanted
out. He fooled me. He fooled everyone. They said his name was
“Armani.” Named after a clothing designer. Wow. Sleek.
Sophisticated. Black like the cat.
I, however, call him Natural Born Killer (or N.B.K. for short) for
obvious reasons. He hasn’t caught on yet. But then he doesn’t
really respond to “Armani” a lot. He really just does his own thing.
Whatever he wants. For better or for worse. But mostly worst. He
couldn’t care less. And he likes killing bugs and eating them.
I gather my wits, full of bravery, ready to face my black, green-eyed
nemesis, but he just stares at me--judging me, challenging me,
threatening me…until I look away in shame and weakness. How do I face
his piercing, burning, evil stare? I am simply not brave enough. It
is sad, I must admit. I am simply too feeble, and he knows it. Oh,
how he knows it.
He sharpens his claws every day until they are perfectly sharp and
battle-ready. He stops me from ever clipping them by evading all my
attempts and never staying still. He knows I am trying to rob him of
his personal weapons. He basically has little knives on his hands and
feet, Edward Scissor-esque ,which I have had the “pleasure” of
experiencing. Once I tried to pick him up, and the little knives
popped out. I still have the tiny scars to prove it.
I know his kindness, his adoration, is part of his master plan to
dominate the household. He rubs against my leg and meows. Damn, the
cuteness! The affection! The feline charm! I must respond by
petting him though I know he has a secret plan to obliterate me and my
family…and then the world. His hair is soft and fluffy and petting it
is like stroking heaven. World domination is not far away…
My cat is not above being petted excessively by the person he wants to
kill. It’s a confusing message. He will roll on his back and whine,
and I’ll pet his wonderfully furry body. We both win, except that I
am letting down my defenses. If I am not careful, he will strike. He
will strike my neck, slice through my carotid artery with his Edward
Scissor paws, and I will die as my blood drains and he laps it up, and
I will lament, “I should have known. I should have known. Somehow…I
knew.”
Sometimes he sits on the middle of the staircase, glaring down on me
below. When I try to go up the stairs, he remains motionless,
blocking me, forcing me to step over him. He does not mind. This is
his turf now. No one goes up or down without him noticing and almost
tripping over him.
My cat claimed every soft surface in the house. The entire house is
his. If he sits there, I do not sit there. Dammit. It’s a
non-spoken rule. He doesn’t pee on things like a dog, but he leaves
one hell of a lot of cat hair in places. Sometimes he likes to be in
weird locations like boxes. I have no explanation. Guess he’s
scouting it out for possible plans of world domination…
Most people don’t realize that when they play with a cat using little
fake mice or feathers on a string or laser pointers, they train them
for their bloody demise. The more cats want to play with you, the
more you should be disturbed--the more they are practicing.
Lately I have come to a terrible realization: I am already my cat’s
slave, and he is my master. I take a mini-shovel and sift out his poo
and darkened cat litter and put it in the trash two times a day.
Sometimes he craps on the floor. Just to taunt me--you don’t clean my
litter box, I crap on your rug. It’s like a message from the Mafia.
Consider it a warning. Next time it will be on the couch, dear human,
or even worse.
On my side is the hairball. Sometimes my cat will hack and hack and
sound like he’s going to die. In this case, he will be gone without
me violating my cat vow. It comforts my soul. I sort of hope his
hacking will end in death, but it is simply a hairball. It looks like
poo, and I still have to clean it up. Damn cat.
I don’t know how he will kill me. That’s up to him. He has a plan.
A sneaky malevolent plan that only he knows. Maybe he will make it
look like suicide. My cat is a cat assassin—a catassin. Maybe he will
hire someone. Maybe he will smother me in my sleep with his furry
body or scratch me until I die of blood loss. Somehow or the other, I
should’ve adopted a puppy.
I would name him Fido. It would have been lovely.