Member-only story
Why Cats Hate Coffee
A short story with Marie
“Marie, will you join us for coffee,” I ask, rambling towards the kitchen to make my coffee.
Marie doesn’t move from her perch looking like an oversized lump of coal. She’s blacker than the sunless side of the moon. She’s midnight oil poured in a furry cat body at midnight with no moon. She’s so black she makes a black hole give her back the black it stole from her.
“Marie, you are looking beautiful today,” I say, smiling. “My little babushka.”
Marie opens one grey opal eye from her curled position on our nylon camping chair (yes, we have a camping chair in our living room) and twists and turns and stretches her one back leg like a cannon straight past her ear into the sky. It’s like a tiny invisible person is pulling her back paw with an invisible string trying to hang her by one leg from the ceiling.
How she does that, God only knows.
Then she yawns. Pulls her leg back down. Stretches her paws. I admire her brilliant white needle-nose fangs as her claws simultaneously grin out from their black-pawed sheaths.
She blinks and shuts the eye that was open, then opens the eye that was shut.
“Marie, you are not a pirate, can you keep both eyes open, please?”
