Brittany and the Black Cat

The last thing Brittany wanted or needed was anything else being put on her plate.

Dealing with her solicitor who was trying to obtain a reasonable settlement during the course of her divorce continually occupied her mind. Sometimes, she thought about getting in touch with her soon to be ex-husband and negotiate herself, but how badly had that gone last time she tried? Not worth the aggravation.

Then there was the daily grind of being a Customer Happiness Agent from noon to 8 in the evening on weekdays and sometimes doing extra on a Saturday, sorting out other people’s less important dilemmas, some of whom were grumpy or even rude. She needed her wits about her to maintain a calm and professional demeanour, biting back some of the things she wanted to tell the unpleasant customers.

Her favourite so far was a woman she had spoken to a few times in the run up to Christmas. Their last conversation, on Christmas Eve, was highlighted by a knock on the door and the delivery of all the presents ordered, delayed by Royal Mail due to intermittent strike action. That customer had been patient and understanding throughout, so Brittany was glad of the little miracle. She even felt they could have become friends if they had met in other circumstances.

On top of all this, she kept trying to propel Leo, her 30-year-old brother, back into the realm of job seeking. All he wanted was to lose himself in video games with his internet friends at all hours of the day and night. 

She had warned him numerous times that when the divorce was final, she would be moving to a smaller place, maybe some one-bedroom flat. He only said he would be fine sleeping on the sofa since he spent most of his time there anyway.

However, the black cat that meowed at her when she was bringing the empty green bin back into the concrete yard behind the terraced house had other ideas about how full her plate was.

The ebony feline rushed into the house ahead of her when she opened the door. What Jackson Galaxy called a door dasher. The behaviour reminded her vividly of her saucy little tabby cat who only last year had crossed the Rainbow Bridge due to a tumour in her throat.

“This isn’t your house,” she told the cat. “Go home now.” She pointed at the door as if this would get the message across, but the invader simply stared at her as if she was daft.

***

The trouble with choosing the form of a cat, though it was one of the easiest ways to time travel, was in communicating with one’s chosen target. 

Well, not target, that was the wrong word. Although he was here, his mind had not fully recovered from the journey, much less oriented himself to these primitive surroundings.

He absently raised one black velvet forepaw and licked the dark fur to give himself an excuse to look away from the human female still pointing at the exit she wanted him to take out of her kitchen and out of her life.

“I don’t like cats,” she told him.

He set down his paw and raised his head to give her another stare, trying to share that he knew this was a complete lie. He felt small and insignificant in her world, but it was essential to become as much a part of her life as any cat could. If he had calculated correctly before travelling back from the future, he must not tolerate being evicted.

Composing himself, he willed his feline eyes to widen slightly as he gave Brittany a silent meow. This was not a plea, not begging, more of an invitation to do the right thing which, from his research, he knew most humans were unable to resist.

***

Brittany, despite her reservations, came to an arrangement with the black cat. After making a tuna salad on that first day and saving half the tin of tuna for him, she took him to the vets to see if he was chipped. He got a clean bill of health but no chip found. She made enquiries with neighbours, took his photo and put posters up. However, the only person who texted her just congratulated her on being adopted by a cat.

So, he was hers for the time being or she was his, depending on the angle taken on the matter.

She preferred the company of a cat to a husband who loved another woman. The black cat curled up contentedly near her desk and didn’t argue about anything. She began talking to him when she got off the phone from a particularly awful customer or share titbits about the nicer ones as if he could understand. Was talking to a cat better or worse than talking to herself in evaluating what her mental health was like?

***

“Are you still with me?” the familiar voice asked.

The black cat who was more than a cat opened his eyes, then realised from how intently she was staring at the monitor screen that Brittany was on another call. He tuned the one-sided conversation out, monitoring her voice and deciding her stress level was not too high.

He stretched in several poses as his body demanded before abandoning the cosy red oval bed which she had brought home for him one day.

Sauntering into the kitchen, he leaped up on the countertop though knowing this was strictly forbidden so he could focus on the calendar which showed a trio of kittens. Not like cats? Sure. And only coincidence that she had bowls and several beds and a litterbox stored in her pantry, right? He was not the first cat in her life and hopefully was not going to be the last.

He focused his feline eyes on the calendar. One day blurred into the next, even the same day seeming longer than it should be because whenever he woke up, he tended to think it was morning again. Life had become a sequence of usually blissful catnaps. It took a little effort to interpret the numbers but Brittany was helpfully in the habit of crossing the days off, so at least that told him where or, rather, when he was. 

The black cat felt a tingle all over his body as he realised that today was the big day. Maximum effort required and don’t spare the horses. Not that driving equines to go faster had anything to do with it. He jumped down and padded across the buttercup linoleum to push his face into the cat bowl. 

Closing his eyes, he let the cat body do its thing, not liking how blurry and smelly the kibble was close-up. A pity that she had not continued to feed him tuna, but he knew human food was not good for cats. He had studied every facet of the animal including nutrition before this most important mission. Only a few cats lived on the ever-expanding lunar colony, but he had been allowed to observe them and even pet them under the careful scrutiny of their privileged humans.

***

Brittany tried to speak calmly though the obvious anger in the customer’s voice set her nerves on edge. When his tone softened while he ordered a latte, she felt outraged. Then he returned to his complaint, talking over her when she repeated her offer of a possible solution.

“If you won’t listen,” she said, “then I can’t help sort this out.”

He snarled an obscenity and told her his very low opinion of her customer service skills.

“If you keep swearing,” Brittany said, “I will have to end this call.”

The rude man swore. 

Hoping he would choke on his latte, she clicked on the symbol that disconnected him, then typed into the group chat starting with an upset face: Angry customer not listening and then swearing after I warned him.

Her supervisor replied with a heart emoji and: Take a Ten.

Brittany clicked the icon for Busy and turned her swivel chair away from the screen. How dare he talk so sweetly about his stupid latte and then resume being horrible about his order being cancelled due to his choice being out of stock.

The black cat was looking at her. She felt tears in her eyes and the rapid beat of her heart. Though she knew he was not a cat who liked to be picked up, she scooped him up in her arms and held him against her shoulder, petting his thick fur with her free hand.

“M’row,” the black cat said.

A smile trembled on her lips. “When the divorce comes through and the house has sold,” she told him, “I’m going to look for a better job, as long as it’s working from home.”

She reluctantly set the black cat down on the carpet, then headed into the kitchen and outside into the sunshine. A breeze ruffled her hair as she took deep breaths and tried to be mindful.

Moments later, she noticed the black cat had joined her and smiled at him.

He slow-blinked, so she attempted to do the same, knowing this was a sign of affection in the language of cats. 

***

The black cat who was not merely a cat padded into the living room after Brittany fed him. She would not need him while she put two ready meals in the oven. 

He studied Leo who was sitting surrounded by empty snack packets on the sofa, completely lost in playing a video game, talking through his headset to other players. Though he looked much like his sister, they shared few other attributes.

Stress level, he deduced, was higher as well as more continuous than Brittany’s had been during that challenging phone call, but chosen voluntarily. Humans were odd creatures.

The black cat swallowed. He knew he had lingered too long in cat form when he started thinking like that. Lucky to be so close to completing his mission.

Leo shouted and raised a fist at some sort of victory.

Easier to imagine his potential with that enthusiastic expression on his face. Time would tell.

The black cat sauntered over and jumped up onto the sofa, expertly avoiding the detritus and circled around three times before he curled up in what Brittany called Loaf Position in close proximity to Leo. This went completely unnoticed, but he didn’t mind. When he returned to the future, he would soon find out how in so many ways this unimpressive man was instrumental in changing things for the better. 

***

“Back to work,” Brittany said. “I’ll clear up later.”

“Aww, good luck,” Leo replied. “Sucks that your shift is 12 to 8 not normal working hours.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, wishing that for once in his life, he would offer to clear up. Since they ate directly from the ready meal trays, it wouldn’t take that long. Leo, though, was probably still a teenager in his mind. Sometimes she felt more like his mother than his older sister.

“I’m going to get some more snacks,” her brother said.

Brittany was surprised that he still had allowance left to buy more. “See you later,” she told him.

When she went back to her desk and clicked the mouse to bring the screen back to life, she smiled because the black cat was already waiting for her. He knew the routine and seemed to like spending time with her while she was working, though he catnapped at intervals.

Typing in her password, she remembered a previous password had been one of her cat’s names. She changed the number after the name whenever prompted for a new password. She felt a little guilty that, though she had bought him that red oval bed, she had not, as yet given him a name. Did he miss that? Did cats care about things like names? She wasn’t sure.

She picked up her mobile to put in the code provided on the monitor screen to verify her identity for signing on, then switched the mode to silent. She placed the device as far away as possible so she didn’t get tempted to check for texts or get lost in YouTube during work time. Not that she was in the habit of doing so, but she always liked to make it as hard as possible to misbehave. 

Originally, she had kept her mobile across the room from her desk, as advised during training, but then she was on the phone with a customer when the verification code flashed up on her screen, so she kept it closer now. That had been a less than professional call because when she got back to her desk, the customer was upset from being put on hold, but luckily her manager didn’t randomly pick that call to evaluate.

Brittany grabbed her headphones and put them around her neck so that she could easily hear the next call coming in. Then she clicked into the oldest email waiting for her. Password reset for someone, nice one to start with and soon sorted. If only they were all that easy and that pleasant. Some of the best customers tried to get her to chat, but that wasn’t allowed.

***

The black cat sat upright, staring at the old-fashioned clock on the wall. 

He had memorised the unfolding of events from the transtemporal information obtained before embarking on this mission and recently checked that the time on the clock matched the time shown on Brittany’s monitor screen.

The second hand seemed to slow down, but he knew that was only because he was so focused on the movement. 

He listened to Brittany’s voice mellow as she dealt with a pleasant customer. He considered how much his actions would change her life. Not that she would ever know anything about it. Even if he currently had human form and could have told her, he was sworn to secrecy before, during and after the mission.

When the hands of the clock finally showed six minutes past six, the black cat jumped up on the edge of the desk, walked over and knocked the mobile phone off the edge. He had never done this before, but had practiced jumping up when she was not in the room.

Brittany, in the middle of a call, glared at him, but he jumped down to the carpet and began to bat the mobile with one paw and then the other, ignoring her.

“What are you doing?” she asked as she set her headphones down and came toward him.

The mobile flashed with an incoming call as she picked it up.

He watched her glance at her monitor then, to his relief, she accepted the unexpected call.

This was the moment he had travelled through time to change.

“No, Leo,” Brittany said. “You can’t go down to the pub with them. I don’t care if they offered to buy the drinks. We don’t take charity and we don’t get in debt—you know that. Come home right now.”

The black cat heard Leo begin to object.

“I’m working,” she replied, “but I expect to see you home in fifteen minutes.”

He watched her return to her desk, hoping this intervention had worked. Previously, his call home unanswered, Leo would have gone out drinking and, near midnight, been hit by a car as he ran after his buddies, the last one to try crossing a busy street. Dead before the ambulance arrived. All of his potential lost, his sister swamped by guilt as well as grief due to missing his call.

The black cat felt a deep satisfaction when he heard the front door being unlocked, the grumbling Leo make his way to the living room. Success. As the exuberant feeling flowed through him, he started to groom himself extensively, the cat body’s reaction to over-abundant emotion.

***

Brittany clicked her mouse on the Power icon, feeling glad to be finishing on a Friday with no extra hours tomorrow. She watched with amusement as the black cat walked away from his bed. The light-weight blue blanket covered in pawprints had gotten caught around one hind leg so he was dragging it behind him with every step and appeared not to have noticed.

“Hey,” she told the cat, “we don’t want no hanky panky with that blankey.”

He paused and looked at her over his shoulder, probably realising that she was talking to him.

She couldn’t help a little giggle, thinking it was a good thing that the cat never understood some of the more bizarre things she sometimes said to him.

Brittany quickly got up and extricated him from the blanket.

Of course, he knew it was time for a tin of Applaws. Tuna with prawn today which she suspected was his favourite. She always reserved that flavour for Fridays. 

This weekend, she might finally decide on a name for him since he seemed to have become a fixture in her life. Nothing she had thought of so far had fit. Maybe she would look online at some Cat Charity websites for inspiration. All of her cats up until now were rescues. In fact, the black cat was probably a rescue, unchipped, maybe abandoned.

***

The black cat closed his eyes as he ate, though the wet food looked much more appetizing than the dry kibble, almost like something a human would eat. Mission accomplished so this was his last meal as a cat. 

He would miss Brittany. Hopefully, she would invite another cat into her life when she finally understood he wasn’t coming back. Or a cat would show up for her, like he had.

Part of his research before the mission had included the Universal Cat Distribution System which made sure that any human who needed a cat was provided with one. Mythical, of course, but an interesting insight into how people of this century thought.