Furball Diaries

The four legged whirlwind is still living in my apartment. He has grown, and gazes speculatively at me from his bright blue eyes, tinged at the center with green, as an idle paw toys with the battery he has somehow extracted from the camera.

He has learned to open doors. Those doors with latches too strong for tiny paws are battered by a not much larger body being hurled against them, often in the depths of the night waking me to lie disoriented, suspecting burglars where there is only a cat.

He has learned that the large white box in the kitchen hides food. Frequently chicken, for which he will run up my body and shove a paw between my lips if I don't put down knife and fork quickly enough. His reflexes are amazing, much faster than mine and mealtimes for me have become times of solitary confinement for him. I could starve.

I watched him, laughing silently, shimmy up the edge of the refrigerator door as though he were climbing a coconut tree, then cling with three paws while the fourth tried its darnedest to insinuate itself between the body and the door to crack this huge nut filled with dreams of poultry or maybe fish.

I frequently encounter him at eye level, mouth wide and pink, legs splayed to grab, tail puffed up like a bottle brush, and if he misses his target (me, and not often) he gazes up from those planning eyes with just the slightest wrinkle, like a frown, between them. How did she do that, I see him wonder.

I caught myself thinking over the weekend whether he could learn to make himself scarce when the landlord is around, hush his yowling for attention, food, a mother who will bowl him over so his muscles grow all strong and catlike.

I am not allowed to have a pet here. Against the rules. Hate rules sometimes.