Pineapples, Am I Right? (Part 3)

“But it's good just to see Rachel with someone who isn't a disinterested prick. She's always ended up with these passive aggressive men who made me nervous but this guy seems to treat her well, at least. And he's very handsome.”

“You humans are silly.”

“And cat's aren't? What do you know anyway?”

Some where around this time Elizabeth began to remember that she was talking to her house cat and perhaps she'd lost her mind. Still, she marveled, it's amazing how quickly a person can get used to the surreal.

“And speaking of that, how the hell do you know about Sailor Moon?”

“Don't look at me, I'm just a cat. Probably just a figment of your quickly debilitating mind.”

“And what does that mean?”

She suddenly stood up in disgust and found her hands on her hips looking down at the tabby. Elizabeth was by nature a good-hearted and quiet person but to be insulted to so effectively was enough to give rise to even her pride.

“Again, I'm just a cat.” Piddles paused to lick his genitals again, his legs splayed in the air, “But come on. You're what, twenty eight? That's like eight million in cat years and you live alone, you work at a library, and you're talking to your goddamn cat.”

The pot of water chose that moment to boil over and Elizabeth walked over to turn the burner down, her eyes narrowed and looking towards Piddles. “Well, I don't normally do that, but you're talking back today.”

Again, she thought, it's amazing how quickly you get used to these things.

“Uh huh. Remember, I've been here the whole time. As I was saying,” Again the cat paused to lick a particularly pungent part of his bum, “You live alone, talk to your cat all damn day and, pardon my forwardness, but when's the last time you had a guy over?”

“Well, there was Brad. . .”

Brad, tall and balding and never quite sure what to do with his tongue, whether it be in his mouth or other places. Brad who came over twice and then stopped returning her calls.

“Yeah, Brad. I may be a cat but that guy was a goddamn stray. And really? How many years was that in human terms? I was still a spring chicken, is all I know.”

“It wasn't that long ago!”

“Yeah, and what about Mark?”

Mark, his broad shoulders and his hairy forearms which flexed in that special little way when he slipped her the paper with his number on it. The number she'd thrown away wondering how any man could ever be so forward as to slip his number to the librarian.

“How do you know about Mark?”

“Oh, I don't know. Maybe I heard about him from you for like two weeks and that one night when you kept moaning his name while played with that blue vibratey thing--”

“Hey!” Elizabeth stomped her foot on the ground and yelled at the cat, her anger finally up and the sound of the knife on the cutting board a resounding whack as she slammed it down. “That's none of your business! And you chewed the damn thing up anyway!”

“Eh, I was never that interested in your damn sex life anyway and I didn't chew it up for the taste. It just kept jumping around under your pillow.”

“You little ungrateful. . . Turd!” She waved the knife at him then, slinging it around like a pointer as she yelled. “I feed you and I scoop your. . . your shit,” Elizabeth puffed her chest a little then, proud to have gotten her anger across, “and you talk to me like this.”

“Hey, I'm just a cat remember? Just a figment of your imagination, but I'm just saying maybe you should get out more. Maybe call your friends occasionally when you're not just desperate for help.”

*** All around me are familiar faces; Worn out places, worn out faces ***

“And stop listening to such depressing music!”

Hearing the ring-tone Elizabeth picked up her phone and saw Rachel's face on the screen again but this time it was her and Ian looking longfully at one another, Rachel's lips a bright red and his cheek wearing a crimson imprint. Of course she changed her Facebook picture to some sappy crap like that, she couldn't help but think as she picked up the phone and looked at the little icon, wondering if she should answer.

Looking at Piddles again, licking his privates once more, she idly picked a piece of the pineapple from its can and started to munch on it before she finally swiped the “answer” icon to the right.

“Meeoorrww?”