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Page 9

by Denis Vaughan


  *******

  He tried to open his eyes slowly, but even that let in too much light. It felt like either his head was taped to the pillow or now weighed ten times more than usual. As he peeled his tongue from the roof of his mouth the thought of Velcro crossed his mind.

  Then suddenly another imaged appeared. It was a fuzzy and somewhat black and white playback of himself dancing a jig to great trad music on top of a table. “Oh my God what have I done,” he moaned, “I think I’ll stick to my own Church on Sundays in future!”

  The Sitters

  “Hey Cat, he’s coming, I can hear him, he’s coming! The Man Person, he’s coming, he’s coming, isn’t it great, isn’t it great?”

  The Cat slowly raised one eye-lid and with blurry vision watched the young dog dance between paws looking from side to side and back at the closed-door with eye-brows shaped in a puzzled but excited way.

  “I’m so excited, so excited. How long have we been here now? I love it here, it’s great, I can hear him, how long has it been since the other persons left us here?”

  “Dog, we arrived last night. Remember, you were crying for an hour,” Cat exhaled slowly and closed her eyes.

  “Me? Crying? No! No way, I don’t, I mean, you know maybe when, there’s been a few occasions on the couch when Step Mom or what was that, em you know the one, em…about the story….”

  “Love Story,” jeez are you ever gonna get over that one?

  “It was so sad…..”

  “I think I preferred your reaction to Titanic!”

  “Titanic, oh no, can you believe it, it just, it just….”

  “I hear him again,” said Cat in a worn out eye closing sigh.

  “Yep, you’re right, he’s coming, I can hear him, he’s coming! Isn’t it great, isn’t it great?”

  There was a shuffle the other side of the door and Dog stood still, with a slight twitch now and then. He looked at Cat then back at the door.

  Silence.

  Dog looked back at Cat and waited.

  Slowly the cat opened her right eye.

  “What?”

  “He’s not here, where is he? The door’s still closed! What if something happened to him? Should I go for help? I can’t hear him!”

  Cat watched Dog as he looked at the door waiting for it to open.

  “Just how are you going to execute the rescue if he’s in trouble?” asked Cat.

  “In trouble? In trouble? I have to rescue him? What’ll I do, where can I go, will I start making human sounds so they can understand there’s a problem?” to which he started to howl and bark.

  “What the hell did I start?” asked Cat.

  Suddenly the light went on and the door opened.

  “Hello fellow, how’s it going, everything alright in here?” came the voice as the hands rubbed and tickled and eyes flitted around to see if there was some unpleasantness to be sorted out.

  “Excellent all’s well then, fantastic, ok, time to go out now and have a quick spell in the garden and then a bit of breakkie, yep?”

  Dog proceeded to go ballistic between the different rooms and they both disappeared in the direction of the front of house.

  Cat opened the squinted eyelids a little further.

  “Someone’s got to tell this guy I ain’t part of the so-called possible problem each morning. When I wanna go, I make sure I time it well.”

  She moved only slightly and started the snoozing rhythm again.

  The peace was interrupted as usual within seconds as the function had been handled and now it was feed time.

  As Dog danced around the floor practically obstructing Man Person’s attempts to get to the food, pour it into the bowl and, most considerably get a liquid refreshment ready as well, Cat was always ready to leap away from danger, which to date on the visits to the Sitters hadn’t actually happened, but you never knew.

  Once Dog was sorted, Man Person rapidly returned to the kitchen area to attempt a quick preparation of some sort of awful smelling hot liquid and an attempt to rival Dogs bowl food, before Dog started hounding him for more.

  “I’m fine,” purred Cat.

  Well, that’s a little unfair, she thought. The Sitters had done practically everything to try and be nice to Cat since she had arrived. Little did they know they had exceeded all expectations and for that very reasons she wasn’t giving any response at all.

  “Reckon you have your hands full with Dog,” a further purr.

  “What? You calling me? There’s no food left, what’ll I do, what’ll we do?”

  “We? Since when were you concerned about my food unless you had access to it?”

  “Hey look, he’s got food, he’s eating, yippeeee, come-on, this is a great day!!”

  Cat watched as Dog leaped into the kitchen and Man Person did a dance almost as spritely as Dog to avoid losing his breakfast.

  “You’ll never learn will you Man Person? As for Dog, well, ’nuff said.”

  #####

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