Lefty, Righty
I had a key to the back door of the house and when the lock turned you developed this sense all the organs in the house were twisting, that the bolt was a mile long and hitched to train cars. The windows had a special kind of glass you couldn’t see through. And you couldn’t hear inside, either. My mother claimed they mixed sound panels with the insulation.
I was to feed their two orange cats, they were sisters, each with different colored irises, left blue, right green, and you could meet the cats a thousand times and never notice but come away haunted and not know why. They were extremely friendly, swishing like grandfather clocks. Lefty, Righty. They’d watch me pass like a security camera on a motor that doesn’t move. And they didn’t move when the food hit the bowl either. They wouldn’t move until I left. I would poke my head back inside to make sure they were eating and they were always gone.
The owners came home Tuesday evening. They usually came home Wednesday morning. And one of them walks in as I’m popping the wet food. Starts telling me about a bad time they’d had, almost yelling. I listened as best I could but the details were scattered — headphones, abalone shell, lost credit card — I went over and gave her a hug. Squeezed her tight. What else was I going to do? The other one came in with the luggage, he was exhausted. He flops down on the couch. I pad over. We look at each other. He smiled and I lay down and nuzzled his neck. Then I ran into the hall. Someone was unlocking the back door.
The key wasn’t turning and I could hear the person outside getting frustrated, soon they were yelling over the fence, forever, for someone to throw them a new set of keys. There was a jingle; he caught them; and then pounding when those keys didn’t work either. I heard him shout, I give up. Went away. I rose slowly and pulled my body along the frame of the door and padded into the kitchen. He was refilling our water at the sink. I waited where he would set the bowl and nosed in before he could get his hand away. Then he laid out the food, my tumescent appetite, and I began to eat and eat.