The Catfood Chronicles

If you’ve never spooned lukewarm tuna casserole from a can labeled ‘Feline Fancy: Ocean Dreams,’ then congratulations—you still have your dignity. Mine vacated the premises approximately two years ago, right around the time HR’s perky twentysomething “transition specialist” explained that my thirty-two years of programming experience had become “legacy knowledge” and that the company was “pivoting toward fresh perspectives.”

Fresh perspectives, by the way, meant Kyle—a cheerful intern who wore beanies indoors and used phrases like “vibe check” unironically. Kyle, who needed me to explain binary search algorithms three times but somehow landed my job at half my salary. Kyle, who sent me a LinkedIn connection request the day after I was escorted from the building with my Batman coffee mug and dying desk plant.

So here I am at sixty-seven, living on a pension so criminally inadequate it should come with its own parole officer. The financial transition from “respected senior developer” to “technically not homeless” happened with the approximate grace of a giraffe on roller skates.

“It’s just temporary belt-tightening,” I told myself back in January, scraping frost off my car windshield with an expired Costco membership card. By April, I’d mastered the art of calculating cost-per-calorie with spreadsheet precision. By June, I’d discovered the dark secret that Big Grocery doesn’t want you to know: premium cat food is basically tuna with different marketing.

“The texture’s a bit off,” I explain to Rutherford, my neighbor’s tabby who visits daily, mostly to judge my life choices. “But you get used to it.” Rutherford stares at me with the particular brand of feline contempt reserved for humans who’ve completely lost the plot.

My apartment—charitably described by the rental listing as “cozy” but more accurately labeled “a storage closet with delusions of grandeur”—offers few distractions from my dietary experimentation. The walls are beige, the carpet is beige, and most days, my outlook is beige.

That’s why the community bulletin board in the lobby caught my eye—specifically, a lime green flyer announcing the local library’s Weekly Short Story Contest. “$50 PRIZE!” it screamed in Comic Sans, the typographical equivalent of a desperate high-five.

Fifty dollars. Two weeks of people food.

“How hard could writing fiction be?” I muttered, calculating that my decades of coding complex algorithms surely qualified me to string together a few thousand words about feelings and whatnot. Code is just syntax, logic, and debugging. Stories are basically the same, except the bugs are called “plot holes” and the users are called “readers.”

I tore off one of those little paper tabs with the email address and stuffed it in my pocket, next to a receipt for my last shameful purchase: Feline Fancy’s newest flavor sensation, “Backyard Bonanza.” The cashier had the audacity to ask if my cat prefers chicken or fish.

“Oh, he’s very particular,” I’d answered with my most dignified expression. “He studied in Paris.”

As I climbed the four flights to my apartment (the elevator being perpetually “under maintenance”), I formulated my brilliant plan: I would write a story so compelling, so heartrending, that those library judges would have no choice but to award me the cash prize. My stomach growled in anticipation—or possibly protest at its current contents.

Rutherford was waiting outside my door, his expression suggesting he knew exactly what was in the grocery bag and was personally offended I wasn’t sharing.

“Not this time, pal,” I told him, unlocking my door. “I’m saving these delicacies for myself. I have a literary career to fuel.”

***

The transition from programmer to literary genius was about as smooth as trying to download the internet through a dial-up modem. My first attempt at fiction consisted of opening a blank document, staring at it until my eyeballs dried out, then typing “The End” and calling it experimental minimalism.

My writing setup was what decorating magazines might generously call “improvised chic”—a card table with one leg slightly shorter than the others, stabilized by a stack of programming manuals that had become about as relevant to modern computing as stone tablets. I’d positioned my ancient laptop atop this wobbly shrine to obsolescence, its cooling fan screaming like a dental drill every time I opened more than two browser tabs.

“Writing’s just like coding,” I assured myself, cracking open my third can of cat food for the day (Seafood Medley—which is marketingspeak for “fish parts we couldn’t legally identify”). “You start with a function—I mean, character—define some variables—I mean, motivations—and then execute a loop—I mean, plot.”

My first completed story was a twelve-page manifesto about a misunderstood genius who invents an algorithm that achieves sentience and exacts revenge on corporate America. The library’s response email arrived with the speed and mercy of a guillotine:

“Dear Valued Contributor, Thank you for your submission. While we appreciated your creativity, your story wasn’t quite the right fit for our contest. We encourage you to try again next week!”

Wasn’t quite the right fit. Translation: “We’re concerned about your mental health and possibly your criminal record.”

I adjusted my approach. Week after week, I crafted stories with increasingly desperate attempts to divine what these mysterious judges wanted. I wrote romance (my protagonist’s love interest was suspiciously similar to my ex-wife, except she appreciated his brilliant mind). I wrote mystery (the butler did it, but only because his pension was cut). I wrote fantasy (a magical world where Social Security actually covered living expenses).

Rejection after rejection piled up in my inbox. Meanwhile, the weekly winner was always announced with gushing praise: “Congratulations to Cheryl Watkins for her touching story ‘Whiskers Through Time,’ about a cat who travels to Victorian England and solves a murder!”

Cheryl. Always Cheryl. With her knitting circle time-travel fantasies and her impossibly perfect grammar. I developed a mental image of Cheryl: sixty-ish, with immaculate silver hair, cardigan-clad, probably sipping tea from bone china while stroking a cat named something pretentious like “Mr. Darcy” or “Chairman Meow.”

By submission fifty-two, I was convinced the contest was rigged. By submission seventy-eight, I’d developed a conspiracy theory involving Cheryl being the library director’s secret mistress. By submission ninety-six, I’d filled three notebooks with analysis of winning stories, looking for patterns like a deranged literary detective.

That’s when my programmer brain kicked in. If this was a system, it could be hacked. If there was a pattern, it could be decoded. I spent three days without sleep (fueled by a particularly pungent variety of Feline Feast called “Backyard Brunch”), creating what I’d later dub “ProseBot9000.”

My creation was beautiful in its simplicity: an AI trained on two years of winning library contest stories. I fed it every available scrap—author bios, judge comments, story themes. The results were enlightening and slightly nauseating.

According to my analysis, winning stories contained:

A female protagonist (73% of winners)

An animal with human-like qualities (82%)

Exactly one scene of tasteful crying (91%)

A revelation about the “true meaning” of something abstract like love or courage (100%)

“So that’s your game, Cheryl,” I whispered to my empty apartment, eyes bloodshot, hair standing up like I’d stuck my finger in a socket. “Two can play at whatever this is.”

Rutherford watched from my windowsill, his tail twitching with what I interpreted as either support for my literary rebellion or concern about my deteriorating sanity.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I told him. “This isn’t crazy. This is tactical.” I cracked my knuckles and began to type my masterpiece: “The Last Cat on Earth.”

***

Let me tell you what happens when desperate retirement meets artificial intelligence and a stomach full of “Tuna Triumph” cat food. It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion, except the train is your dignity and the track is whatever remains of your self-respect.

ProseBot9000 and I developed what psychologists might call an “unhealthy codependent relationship” over the next seventy-two hours. I’d forgotten what sleep felt like. My apartment had transformed into what crime scene investigators would label “a concerning environment” – empty cat food cans forming aluminum stalagmites around my chair, coffee rings overlapping on every surface like some deranged Olympic logo.

“The Last Cat on Earth” emerged from our collaboration like a butterfly from a chrysalis – if butterflies smelled faintly of processed fish and existential desperation. The story followed Whiskers McTabby (female, naturally), the sole feline survivor of an apocalypse that conveniently eliminated only humans and dogs. Emotional journey? Check. Precisely one tasteful crying scene? Double-check. Moment where cat realizes the “true meaning of love”? So check it hurts.

My relationship with my laptop had evolved to the point where I was whispering sweet nothings to its processor. “Just a little more RAM, baby, we’re almost there,” I’d coo while force-feeding it more of Cheryl’s literary DNA.

The final product was a Frankenstein’s monster of sentimentality – stitched together from algorithmic analysis and fueled by my burning desire for actual human food. I hit “Submit” at 3:47 AM, then immediately collapsed face-first onto my keyboard, leaving a perfect QWERTY imprint on my forehead that wouldn’t fade for three days.

The email arrived exactly one week later while I was engaged in the dignified activity of trying to determine if “Savory Salmon Surprise” had expired or just naturally smelled like a mermaid’s armpit.

“Dear Jim,” it began, which was already different from the usual “Dear Valued Contributor” automated rejection. My heart rate accelerated to hummingbird levels.

“We are pleased to inform you that your story ‘The Last Cat on Earth’ has been selected as this week’s winner! Please come to the library this Friday at 6 PM to collect your prize and meet our panel of judges.”

I stared at the screen so long my laptop went to sleep, then panic-slapped the spacebar to make sure I hadn’t hallucinated the entire thing. The words remained. I had won. WE had won – me and ProseBot9000, the dynamic duo, the Jobs and Wozniak of manipulating library contest judges.

I did what any reasonable person would do: performed a victory dance so enthusiastic it prompted Mrs. Abernathy downstairs to thump her ceiling with a broom handle. Rutherford, who had chosen this moment to visit, watched my celebration with the detached interest of a cat contemplating whether I was having a seizure or just being my usual weird self.

But my euphoria lasted approximately seventeen minutes – right until I got to the second paragraph: “We’re also excited to invite you to participate in our ‘Local Authors Panel’ immediately following the award ceremony, where you’ll discuss your creative process and inspirations.”

My creative process? My CREATIVE PROCESS? What was I supposed to say? “Well, I built a rudimentary AI to analyze your judging patterns because I was convinced you were all in the pocket of Big Cheryl, then I basically let a computer program tell me what to write so I could afford Campbell’s instead of ‘Chicken Surprise: For Discerning Felines’?”

I spiraled into a panic so intense it briefly gave me the ability to speak cat. Rutherford and I shared a moment of existential dread before he returned to licking his hindquarters – his standard response to all of life’s challenges.

Friday approached with the speed of a runaway truck. I rehearsed lies in my bathroom mirror: “My inspiration? It came to me in a dream.” (Too cliché.) “I draw from human experience.” (Too pretentious.) “I channel my ancestors’ voices.” (Too likely to result in a psychological evaluation.)

The night before the event, I stood in front of my closet, contemplating what one wears to both accept victory and commit literary fraud. I settled on my “funeral for a distant relative” outfit – nice enough to show respect, not so nice that people think you’re expecting an inheritance.

As I drifted off to sleep that night, Rutherford curled at my feet like a furry judgment, I had the disturbing realization that I might have accidentally stumbled into a new career – as a con artist in the cutthroat world of small-town library short story competitions.

***

The library loomed before me like a literary Mount Doom. I clutched my fifty-dollar check (yes, paper—the library apparently hadn’t discovered digital banking, much like I hadn’t discovered dignity) and tried to stop my eye from twitching like a broken turn signal.

The “Local Authors Panel” turned out to be four folding chairs at the front of the library’s community room, which smelled like a potent cocktail of furniture polish, old books, and the unmistakable aroma of someone’s contraband tuna sandwich. A crowd of approximately twenty-seven people sat in neat rows, their faces displaying varying degrees of polite interest and “I’m only here because the book club meeting is next.”

I recognized my fellow panelists immediately. A bearded man in a tweed jacket with elbow patches so aggressively academic they practically had tenure. A young woman with pink hair and more facial piercings than my laptop had ports. And—there she was—Cheryl. My nemesis. My white whale. The destroyer of dreams and apparent queen of the Middleton Library Short Story Competition circuit.

She wore a cardigan embroidered with cats (of course) and smiled at me with the warmth of someone who had absolutely no idea I’d built an AI specifically to defeat her literary reign of terror. Her silver hair was indeed immaculate. I immediately hated how much she looked exactly like my mental image.

Darla, the librarian who’d called me with the good news, introduced us to tepid applause that sounded like rain on a tin roof if the rain was deeply ambivalent about being there.

“And finally, Jim Thornton, our newest winner with his touching story ‘The Last Cat on Earth’!”

I waved awkwardly, like a man being identified in a police lineup who wants to seem friendly despite the circumstances. Someone in the back sneezed. It was possibly the highlight of my introduction.

The first thirty minutes were a blur of literary pretension so thick you could spread it on toast. Tweed Jacket dropped references to Proust and Joyce like they were old drinking buddies. Pink Hair discussed her “organic process” that involved writing only during specific moon phases. Cheryl shared heartwarming anecdotes about how her stories came to her while knitting sweaters for rescue animals.

Then Darla turned to me with a smile that suggested it was my turn to bullshit creatively. “So, Jim, what inspired your beautiful story? The judges were particularly moved by your protagonist’s journey.”

My mouth went dry. The room seemed to tilt slightly. In that moment, I could actually feel my one remaining brain cell furiously searching for an appropriate response, like a hamster having a panic attack on its wheel.

“Honestly?” I heard myself say, as though watching from outside my body, “I got tired of eating cat food and built a robot to write for me.”

The silence that followed was so complete you could have heard a speck of dust land on a cotton ball. Someone’s watch ticked. Somewhere, miles away, a butterfly probably flapped its wings.

Then Cheryl snorted. Actually snorted. Which caused Pink Hair to giggle. Which triggered Tweed Jacket to let out a bark of laughter so sudden it startled the woman in the front row into dropping her reading glasses.

“That’s—that’s the best thing I’ve heard all day,” wheezed Cheryl, wiping her eyes. “Cat food! A robot! Oh my goodness.”

They thought I was joking. They thought this was some kind of witty, self-deprecating humor from a fellow creative genius. The audience was laughing now too, a rolling wave of amusement that somehow transformed my pathetic confession into the highlight of the evening.

“Tell us more about this ‘robot’!” called out someone from the back row.

So I did. I explained ProseBot9000 in excruciating technical detail. I walked them through my conspiracy theories about the contest. I confessed to my diet of premium cat food. I held nothing back, figuring that if I was going down, I might as well crash spectacularly, like a computer running Windows Vista.

By the end of my impromptu TED talk titled “How Desperation and Fancy Feast Led to Literary Fraud,” people weren’t just laughing—they were engaged.

A woman with oversized glasses and a press badge cornered me afterward. “I run the ‘Middleton Matters’ podcast,” she said, thrusting a business card at me. “Would you be interested in doing an episode about AI and creativity? This is the most refreshing take I’ve heard in years.”

Three days later, my podcast interview went viral in certain corners of the internet. Two weeks after that, I had a blog with seventeen thousand followers. A month later, I was selling mugs that said “Written by AI, Approved by Hunger” and “My Other Manuscript is a Computer Program.”

Here’s the twist, though—I still eat cat food. Not because I have to—the blog actually generates decent ad revenue now—but because I’ve developed a taste for it. “Tuna Triumph” Tuesdays are a thing in my apartment. Rutherford joins me sometimes, though he insists on eating from the fancy ceramic bowl while I use the chipped mug that reads “World’s Okayest Programmer.”

My new fans think I’m quirky. Eccentric. A delightful commentary on modern technology and art. They don’t know the half of it. Cheryl and I meet for coffee weekly now, where she shares knitting patterns and I explain how I trained an AI to imitate her writing style. We’re collaborating on a children’s book about a robot who dreams of becoming a cat.

Life’s funny that way. One minute you’re contemplating the cost-benefit analysis of expired tuna meant for animals, and the next you’re a minor internet celebrity with a brand built on accidental honesty. If there’s a moral here, I haven’t found it yet—though ProseBot9000 suggests it’s something about “the unexpected journey to self-discovery through technological innovation and dietary experimentation.”

But what does an AI know about life lessons? Almost as much as a retired programmer who still can’t tell the difference between “Savory Salmon Delight” and actual salmon.

Almost.