I am feeling very tired today.

I just do not feel like hunting. I do not feel like eating. I do not feel like running around and feeling the wind on my little face. I do not want to do…anything. My best friend also feels the same way. Beauty has mostly been sleeping today too, when not waking up to catch us some bugs and caterpillars, or to take a giant poop. At least, she has learnt to bury her poop now.

“ Will Mom and Dad ever come back?” Beauty asks me while drooling with her eyes closed. It is a hot, humid, afternoon and we have no choice but to lie very still under the shade of a thorny brush to keep cool. The leaves of that bush is crackling and curling up in the heat. Hours of inaction is making me drowsy and I am already falling asleep, thinking about a nice, juicy, brown mouse that I want to catch for our dinner. I had seen that mouse scurrying about earlier but it was too quick for me when I made a dash for it. No matter, I will get that mouse…

“Will they come back, ya think?” Beauty repeats her question, waking me up from my nice mouse dreams.

I raise my head long enough to bite away at some fleas on my body.

“ No, they won’t. They forgot about us.” I answer and fall back into a restless sleep. I no longer stare up at our old balcony longingly, willing and wishing that our parents would show up one day. The balcony continues to be right there, opposite from the thorny bush which is now our shelter, unlooked for.   

 “ Mimi, you are looking so so boney.” Beauty props one eye open and looks at me. 

“ Yeah,” I mumble, “I feel so…so…weak.” My heart beats in a slow and irregular rhythm, Tick tick tock tock tik-tik-tik.

“ You look sad too, Mimi. What happened? You were happy not too long ago, when you realized the zombies were gone.” Beauty swishes her tail against mine and begins licking me behind my ears. I close my eyes and lean in towards her. It feels so good.

“ Beauty? Can I ask you something?”

“Mhmmm?” She is running her scratchy tongue on top of my head.

“Other humans have come back. Why haven’t our Mommy and Daddy?” I feel tears stinging my eyes.

Beauty stops her petting, brings her face right up to mine, her eyes as round as blue marbles. “Maybe they got eaten by those zombies?”

 I bolt upright and crinkle my little pink nose. “Or maybe you ate some zombies! Your breath stinks!”

 “ HEYYYYYY! You’re mean!” Beauty springs up and looks hurt. 

 “Well, yeaa…but your breath stinks!” I shoot back. Her bad breath offends me. I am too sad and tired to put up with her dirtiness today. 

 Without a warning, Beauty growls and pounces on me. We fight and roll out from under the thorny bush and cut ourselves, clawing, punching, biting at each other and shrieking. I feel weak and dizzy. My sight is getting dark. I don’t care to fight back, anymore.  

“Ok st…op…I can’t breathe…You’re so heavy” I beg Beauty, who is now sitting on top of me. 

“Take that back, MIMI! I’m not fat and I’m not smelly. I’ve lost weight cuz I’m always hungry!” Beauty yells at me. 

“ MIMI! BEAUTYYYY?!!!” 

We both freeze, mid-fight. Beauty stares at me her huge blue eyes turning black. My heart feels like it has stopped. 

Could it be…really? No…after this long? Where is it coming from? 

“ Look UP Silly Goose! Over here!” I hear the beloved sing-songy voice

Beauty jumps off of me and looks up. I see her tail spring straight,

“MEOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!” 

NO WAY! IT REALLY IS MOM AND DAD! THEY ARE BACK! AFTER ALL THIS TIME! Dad’s hair has gone completely grey. And Mommy and Daddy are looking like those zombie things- pale skin with hollowed eyes, skin hanging off of bones, raggedy and thin hair. Where has my sparkling and beautiful mother gone?

I see Mommy and she is crying. She is also struggling to hold a wriggly red thing in her arms. I’m not quite sure what that squirming and ugly creature is, but it looks like a mini human. And it is bigger than me, oh no! Daddy is jumping up and down, waving his arms wildly from that same old balcony, laughing.

“ Mimi, Beauty! Lemme come and get you guys! Just you wait!” Dad shrieks.

 Beauty runs toward the balcony- towards Mommy and Daddy and our beloved home. But I run the opposite way. I choose to run away because I do not want to go back to a Mommy and Daddy who left us behind. 

A FEW MONTHS LATER.

I am sitting by the same old window, of our gray carpeted heaven, watching the snow fall in thick globs. I must have been sitting here for hours, with Beauty lying down and snoring, beside me. I feel stronger now since I am getting three square meals a day. I am trying to ignore the sounds of that human baby screaming and crying for my Mommy, taking Mommy’s attention away from us for one reason or another. Mommy is with that baby-thing now, somewhere in the house, cooing to him and trying to shush his whining. Beauty and I have decided that we hate him.

“Ladies, you’re still mad at us?” Daddy pets my back. I ignore him. “I wish you knew how scary it was out there with little food and water.” Dad sounds sad and tired all the time now and the hollows in his eyes have still not gone away. “Do you know how it feels like to know that you couldn’t keep your family safe, when you see zombies surround your shelter cuz they heard your baby cry? Do you know how it feels like to see your friends eaten and turn?”  

Well, I was chased by cannibal cats. But I never forgot about you, I wanted to say. I never would’ve left you. I am so mad and hurt at my parents for leaving me and Beauty behind. We were left alone, cold, scared, hungry and were nearly eaten. 

“Oh don’t be mad at them. They’re just cats and they didn’t know what it was like out there” Oh really lady!

Mommy strolls in with the fat baby in her arms, lets him down on the floor, and sits beside Daddy.

“ Spoilt brats! They don’t know how good they had it.” Daddy jerks his hand away and snorts in disgust. I continue to look out the window and pretend to not have a care in the world. Beauty opens her eyes only to rolls them and goes right back to sleep and snoring.  

“ You need to get a grip! Stop letting your anger out at me and the cats.” Mom snaps at Dad before she quickly turns to the baby, “Sweetie don’t touch the socket!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Daddy sigh and grabs a hold off Mommy’s hand. “Nothing is the same anymore. So few people, little food, no jobs. I don’t know what to do. I’d feel better if the cats would forgive us. I want things to go back to the way they were before all this happened.”

“It won’t be the same. But we are here, back in our old home, all together again. And now we have a baby with us too.” Mommy says in her wonderful musical voice.

“Aaapppp Taaappppp Taapppppp” The human baby crawls up to my spot and reaches out to me with one chubby arm. I turn to fully to face the baby and allow him to run his soft little fingers down my face. I close my eyes. It feels soo good. 

Beauty whispers to me,“Don’t give up on the pact, Mimi. We have to continue to be mad at Mommy and Daddy, so that they don’t dare to leave us again.” 

“Uhmmmm-hmmmm. I won’t. But how long do you want to keep this going?” I whisper back. 

“ Shhhhsssshhhhh….be quiet Mimi. You’re too loud.” Beauty scolds me. “I’m sleep-acting and you’re gonna blow my cover.”

“Sorry, I can’t hear so well anymore.” I feel old. 

“ By the way, isn’t it so good to be back though? Being clean and fed on demand? I like Mommy and Daddy feeling guilty and feeding us whenever we want now!” Beauty gives me a cunning grin. 

A warm glow of happiness fills me and I feel as if I’m being lifted up. Oh yes, I am back in my gray-carpeted heaven, that I had longed for so much, over the many months of being stuck outside and being chased by zombies and freaky cats. And as much as I am upset at my humans, I am so happy that they did come back. Maybe they do love us after all and came back for us? What if they leave us behind again if I show them too much attitude? Maybe, I will not stay mad at them any longer.

With that thought and with the happy squeals of the chubby human baby filling my ears, I jump down from the window perch and walk towards my Mommy. I climb onto her sweet-smelling lap, dig my head into her tummy, make myself perfectly comfortable, and begin to purr…

THE END. 

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