A piece of fiction from a fictional writer...

Just for fun and to distract me from the fibro pains that are bugging the living tar out of me at the moment, I thought I would post this excerpt of a piece from a writer who is struggling with the writing part. Enjoy.

Wha Happen??

          It had been a couple of months since we brought Fuzzball home that I realized that I hadn’t seen Miss Lillian lately. Perhaps, I figured, that I was finally settling into the routine of having to step over a furry body that was parked in the middle of where I was walking; or working around having to fight for a stream of water in the sink. The only time that this wasn’t a problem was when I was washing dishes. Fuzzball decided one day to assist me with this task since it probably wasn’t being done properly. The first time that a bubble went up his nose, he looked at me as if to say, ‘you’re on your own, slave,’ and rather rapidly scooted off of the sink.

          Fuzzball was very curious about the way that I did my daily chores. He would help me to dust, and more than once I had to replace my feather duster because he would pull and eat the feathers out of it. When I replaced it with a dust cloth, he decided it wasn’t fun anymore and assigned that task to V.K. who politely declined.  The washer and dryer was a little more fascinating because he decided that they purred, too, but they didn’t have fur. That changed when I was doing some rugs and the washer went off balance…that was the first “wha happen??” look that he had. Fuzzball had been snoozing on it, enjoying the gentle vibrating of the agitator, when it went into spin mode. At first it was bothersome, but when it started to ‘walk’ across the laundry room, I never thought I would see a cat move so fast! When he finally came to a screeching halt on the other side of the apartment, he was triple in size, shaking and his eyes were the size of saucers. The most pitiful meow I had ever heard came out of his mouth and I had to laugh at poor Fuzzball. Picking him up, I calmed him, stroked his chin and told him it was ok. It was days before he went into the laundry room again. When he finally did make his way back in, he decided that the dryer was a better place to hang out as well as being warmer. More than once I had to shoo him out of it before I could load it up with wet clothes. Once, he had snuck in and I was about to close the door when he decided that it was too wet in there and calmly walked out. From that time on, I did laundry behind closed doors and the cats were pretty much ok with that decision.

          Mopping the kitchen floor was another matter altogether. Much like dusting, Fuzzball decided that the strings on the mop, even though they were wet, were the best thing other than side winding. When the mop would hit the floor he would jump back and get into his pounce position. Then as it went back and forth, his ever growing hind end would shimmy and he would bounce after it like he was on a trampoline. The first couple of times I found this incredibly amusing, then I realized that this chore now took twice as long to complete when Fuzzball assisted than before he became a part of our family. So, whenever I had to mop floors, in the bedroom he went until I was done. The first time I did that, he pouted and ignored me for hours until the can opener started. When he excitedly went to see what kind of delectable goodies that I had for him and realized that it wasn’t for him, he voiced his displeasure for my actions and hid until the kids came home. All night he would play with them, V.K. and even my husband, but I was grounded and there was no way that he was going to even speak to me. Bedtime came and instead of his usual place behind my knees, he went to the box in the corner of the room, curled up into a ball and slept there. I had, in effect, got sent to the ‘dog house’ and I was uncharacteristically upset. The next day, I decided to make up with Fuzzball and went to the pet store to find him a toy. While I was there, I found a small bowl that contained cat grass and decided that would be a good make-up gift. What I didn’t realize is that infused with the cat grass was catnip….uh, oh.  

          So, home I went with the suck-up gifts for my Fuzzball. I was excited to see how he would do with the fishing pole, the circle with the ball in it that didn’t come out, and of course, the cat grass. When I opened the door, V.K. came to greet me, rubbing my legs and purring as if to say, ‘I know you have a bag; I love you, now fork it over,’ Fuzzball was nowhere to be seen. I set the bag on the table and began removing the items, all the while watching V.K.’s expressions as they were presented. Since the grass was still in its plastic terrarium it was less interesting than the fishing pole, which she promptly took off with. Soon after, Fuzzball came strolling in and noticing the bag on the floor, promptly took up residence until I opened the cat grass. Pupils dilated and eyes got wide; some weird chirping noise came from him and his nose started twitching….then like a flash of lightening, my lazy kitten was on the table, snuffling and rubbing and meowing like nothing that I’d heard or seen coming from him. If I hadn’t been aware of him being there, which was really hard considering all of the noise he was making, the grass would have been on the floor and he would have been rolling in it. It was then that I guessed at the genesis of the word caterwauling, because it was the only description I could give to the noise that he was making!

Still not making the connection between Fuzzball’s noise and the cat grass, I gently as possible took the terrarium away from him and put it on the windowsill above my kitchen sink. Immediately he was up there, chomping away like he hadn’t eaten in a millennium. Glad that he was content and purring away, I turned to find something for me for lunch. It didn’t take long for V.K. to come to see what happened to her running buddy and then to partake in the delectable goodies that were found by Fuzzball. Once they had munched as much as their little tummies could take, they took off to find the new toys. Peace had been restored to my home…..for now.

          After my lunch, I went to the laundry room to put clothes into the dryer. Apparently, when I wasn’t looking, Fuzzball had come into the laundry room before I had closed the door to see what I was doing, and finding the dryer door opened, crawled in to see what was new. Not knowing he was in there, I put a small load of wet clothes in, shut the door and turned on the dryer. The thumping that I heard bothered me because I knew that there was nothing in there that would make that noise. Stopping the dryer and opening it to find out what it was, I found one very fluffy Fuzzball who wanted nothing more than to exit this chamber of horrors, the sooner the better. I opened the door and took after him to try to calm him down, but the cat language that spewed out of his mouth told me that I had better leave him alone for at least the rest of the day! Needless to say, Fuzzball gave up the territory of the laundry room altogether to V.K., who politely declined after witnessing his adventure with the dryer.

          Once this adventure was complete, and his fur had gone down to its normal place, Fuzzball tried to play with the new toys that I had brought home. However, with him still being shaken up some and V.K. being out of control whack, Fuzzball decided to find refuge in the kid’s toy box, away from the annoying side-winding and batting of his roomie, V.K.

Play could be put on hold, as far as he was concerned, until he was ready.