Not another pet again. Ever.

Tom loved that cat, it was just that it could be a little loud sometimes… Normally, he didn’t mind the disturbance all that much, and honestly, burying his face in that fluffy fur was just sometimes what he needed to get the strength to carry on working from home. But this time it had been non stop. The meowing, the begging for food, the scratching, and the butt in his face… When Ashley had left for her work, she’d trusted him, like all other days, with Watching. The. Cat. And that’s exactly what he had done, for a while.

Look, he felt bad about it, but could you really blame him? Mr. Peters had warned him two times already: “Get rid of the noise!”.

So naturally, he’d let him outside, just for a while. Even indoor cats can manage themselves for a little while, right?

This was the third hour without a sound from him and Tom started to get worried. It was the beginning of November and the sun had already set. They lived on the ground floor in a quiet part of town; the only natural enemies were the two pitbulls a few houses away and they started to seem like the most likely suspects. When they’d moved here, Ashley had made sure that the area was “cat proof”.

It had been a mistake to let him out, but Tom was going to fix it.

Boots on, raincoat, and one of those headbands with a flashlight that those runners wear that make them look like either the biggest jerks on earth, or some sort of black ops.

This was a rescue mission of the highest order.

He closed the door behind him and almost stepped on the space of the porch’s one missing floorboard that could kill somebody. Ashley had told him over and over to fix the damned plank, and his usual response had been “Why don’t you do it?”.

Stalemate.

Like all other times it would have to wait until another time. Now the sole focus was the cat - Winston was his name - and Tom felt his heart racing more and more by each passing cat-less minute. He had lost a turtle once. A gift from his parents on his seventh birthday (who gives the responsibility of a turtle to a seven year old anyways?). Of course it disappeared (or most likely escaped) from the garden one summer afternoon, and of course little Tom had been heartbroken. He was not about to let it happen again.

First he knocked on the pitbull owners’ door, and they hadn’t seen anything. This was a young couple, and honestly, Tom couldn’t trust them with a bag of potatoes, let alone two potential killing machines (apologies to all pitbull owners). Tom quickly looked for blood stains around the dogs’ jaws but saw nothing.

Then, he shone his light beneath the steps and crawl spaces of some houses, until Mrs. Thompson over at 15 threatened to call the cops. After a good two hours of searching, images of Mr. Turtle became more and more haunting. Ashley was on her way home and he knew she was going to freak.

“This is it then”, he thought as he somberly dragged himself back to their house. No more soft midnight cuddles. No more cute purring. And no more looking for cat toys in increasingly weird stores across town. It had been a hobby of theirs. Going around to places in the outskirts of town that seemed like they were about to collapse, surprisingly popular among young “unique” people. Hipsters, Tom believed they were called. Many of them sold cat toys. Many more sold sex toys.

He blamed his work. He blamed Mr. Peters. But mostly, he blamed himself. Never had he thought he could miss a cat like he did now, and never had he been more frightened of a conversation than the one he would have to man up to with his, at the moment, blissfully ignorant fiancé. For just a moment he thought of running away from home. There are many things you can get too old for, but it seemed that the inner child that wants to run away from his problems was still there at thirty two. He also started to question the stability of his and Ashley’s relationship. There was a guy once, at a party they both attended, fit as a rock and just oh so handsome. Real Mr. Dreamy. Tom had seen her enchanted gazes after a small argument over a stupid comment to one of her friends, and if that could steer her attention to another guy, then what would a dead cat lead to?

When facing a disaster, the insecure little boy’s voice is increasingly loud and convincing, and Tom felt it. Louder than ever.

She was already inside when he approached the house, and just as he started to close the door behind them, heavy chest and preparing for the worst, she shouted;

“Winston! What are you doing outside??”.

And there he was. Sat on the porch, the beautiful, grumpy old cat that Tom had missed and grieved for the last couple of hours. He must have snuck up right after him, and boy was Tom relieved. Ashley rushed to the door but he insisted;

“No, I’ll get him! I was the one who let him out and I will get him”.

Ashley had warned him many times about the dangers of a missing floorboard, but he had rejected it as overreactions or misplaced fear.

“It is a tiny space that literally nobody could accidentally step into”.

It is fascinating what the human body is capable of when you’re not trying to do anything particular.

When he launched himself towards the poor cat, his foot got caught between the boards, and like an acrobat, Tom’s body did something of a flip. Somehow, he managed to grab onto the rake beside him, plunging it down towards Winston.

There was blood and screams. Then sobbing. Tom vowed to himself never to get another pet again.