The Cat

Hellie

This was the missing link, the pies de resistance, the...the something else that means the absolute peak of (literary) perfection.

Zenith? I've always loved that word. Let's go with that.

"Hey there little Zenith," I gently called out so as not to scare the cat staring blankly back at me. It was generically Tabby and a little prone to licking its paws every time I engaged it, like my mere presence was dirtying it. This cat and Fogerty must hang out at the same bar.

"Finally," I said to myself and also to a random man I hadn't noticed watching me, a (supposedly) grown woman trying to coerce a cat into doing something worth writing about.

"Can I help you?" I asked, but I apparently couldn't because he decided to move on. When I turned back around, Zenith was already trotting his tiny Tabby behind down the sidewalk. I took mental notes: mild weather (not too hot nor too cold), a sufficient amount of passersby (meaning there weren't any...my favorite amount), and an entire storyline creeping up and out of the sidewalk cracks as I allowed Zenith to practically write my book for me.

I had hit a wall. I knew it. Brent knew it. I'm sure even that strange man on the sidewalk knew it. I mean I get writing the Great American Novel shouldn't be easy. But I've been writing this dang thing for six years now, and I'm only on chapter eleven. And for that reason, I have absolutely no shame in letting a stray cat take the reins for a while.

"So, where we heading, Zenith?" I cooed. We shuffled past a flower shop and a little boutique with cute clothes that would make me look like I was trying too hard (whereas I prefer to look as if I'm not trying at all. Nailed it). I could see Fletcher's Funeral Home in the mere distance, and my writerly senses started tingling.

"A funeral home!" I said abruptly to a small Asian woman pushing a small dog in a stroller. She tsked at me and swiped her finger left and right, unknowingly ruining my favorite amount of passersby.

I ignored her, too enthralled with Zenith, who was leading me straight to literary gold. And as we got a little closer, I felt a little farther away from Daisy, and poor Pearl, and the fact that my brother's my best friend and the kind of person who never takes off his shoes (even to sleep), and all the other ways I could feel sorry for myself. But I don't have to because this cat is guiding me away from having to consider any of those things as I sink deeper into a reality I can control.

But then he stops short, turns to look at me again (and licks his paw for good measure) before strolling through the open doors of a place I was sure I'd never be caught dead in.

A church.