I Cannot Read Because of the Cat
I cannot read because of the cat.
I'm telling you, it's just out of hand. She's not even my cat and that makes it all the worse. I can't set her outside, or scold her and lock her away. So whatever the cat decides to do is what the cat is going to do, dammit. Any questions?
Ugh. My hands are stinging, itching, because the cat's been clawing them up. "I'm trying to read, damn you!" has no effect on the cat, and picking her up to move her is out of the question. She's on the aggressive now, I can see it in her eyes. She's daring me to even try. Better choose your next moves carefully, kid. "You're just a cat!" I say out loud. "What can you possibly do?" So I pick her up, sacrificing my skin's safety, squeezing shut my eyes, enduring the scratching. When she gets her claws in things only get worse, the allergies flaring up. What a disaster this is turning into. I no longer care who is in charge of this cat, because the cat has just put me in charge. "You've got to get out of here," I say, carrying her down the hall and into the den. "You're going to sit in here."
Finally I will be free of the cat.
"You're a very bad cat," I say, plopping her down on the end seat of a sofa. She runs up the back of the seat and reaches her paws out at me but I push her away.
"You know," I say, "You really are a very bad cat."
I go to wash my hands in the sink. They're really starting to itch now, and I'm thinking All right. All right, you've gone and done it again. She's really scratched you up this time and I turn on the hot water, as hot as it will go, gradually, with my hands under the spout, and let it wash over my itchy skin with its scalding steam rising up into my face. I lather soap and let it into my scratches where it soothes the stinging and then I wash it off again with another burst of ultraheated water. I use a cloth of soft Egyptian cotton to dry, and the fabric is gentle. That's when I hear the cat running back into my room and jumping on my bed.
I'm really telling you, it's out of hand, this situation with the cat.
"All right, you can stay," I say, climbing back up on the bed with my book. "I just want to read, after all. So just... Play quietly, okay?"
She agrees, tenuously at first, batting at my blinds a little and rolling around on my pillows. There's a power move if I've ever seen one. Yeah, I know you're allergic to me, is the message she's sending with her eyes. They make contact with mine and remain locked while she rolls and rubs herself on every pillow on my bed. "You little shit." I exhale slowly and focus on my book. Or at least that's why I'm trying to do, but look at what I have to deal with!
Cats, it seems, do not stay interested in one thing for long. Because now she is opening and shutting the blinds with her paws, watching the light hit me on the face, and then she is rolling down the pillow and batting my arm, once, and running back up the pillow again. And then she has decided that she is the queen of this bed and that I am like a servant to her; I am something that she is done using, done playing with, and now it is my time to leave the bed. At least that's what she wants me to think. She's decided to attack anytime I try to sit, so I have no choice but to stand. Insolence! She hisses, but I know who's really in control. "All right, I get it, you have my attention." Unfortunately for her, too much attention means that she has put me in charge again. "You're not getting out of things so easily this time."
I carry her down to the empty room and I set her on the empty bed.
"You're a tremendously bad cat," I say, closing the door.
I get back to my bed and settle back in and finally pick up my book, free from all distractions. And then it starts up, that little wail, that heart-rending mewling of hers that positively melts me. I am compelled to answer, I cannot ignore it; I go back to open the door, and she's waiting, there! She's running now, really booking it, and she leaps back onto the bed next to my book and begins trying to eat it. "Easy now," I remove her from the book and set her next to me. She begins to bite and claw at my arm again. I'm telling you, I just cannot take it sometimes.
But for now, I must. And so I sit with my book in one hand and a cat on my other, doing its best impression of a paper shredder. She really is the queen, I guess. What else can I say? I'll keep the end of the book propped open on the side of the bed and I'll lie down next to it and read. I'll ignore the slow peel of my arm because the cat has decreed it must be peeled, and I can no longer ignore the cat's wishes. Then she jumps out and knocks my book to the floor. Do you see this? Do you see what I'm dealing with?
"You're a very bad cat," I say.
It makes no difference, she speaks with her eyes as she resumes peeling.
I cannot read because of the cat.