CLAMOUR

Dappled sun rays squeezed their way through the trees, creating mysterious shadows. The blue sky was dotted with fluffy white clouds that drifted lazily in the gentle afternoon breeze. Tiny specks of dust seemed to dance in the shaft of afternoon sunlight that slanted through the window into the dining room where Sarah and her grandmother ecstatically sat at table. An assortment of aromas oozing directly from the dishes of delicacies graced the room. Sarah sliced into a piece of apple pie. The crust was as crunchy as a butter cookie, so brittle that it cracked audibly when she pressed it with her fork. Grains of cinnamon sugar bounced off the surface as it shattered. With her age-old fork, Grandma held a sausage roll hotter than a blacksmith's forge close to her widely gaping mouth. Her salivary glands could not help responding to the teasing aroma of the meat-stuffed roll. As she gave off a reception bite to the sizzling sausage, her grey eyelashes momentarily flumped with a dull thud as her taste buds deeply meditated upon the inciting taste of spicy beef. Time froze for a moment. The clock stopped ticking.

"Grandma, are you sleeping already?" giggled Sarah as she sipped a mouthful of chilled mango juice which flowed in an unbroken stream like a waterfall down her thirst-wrenched throat.

"Not really," nodded Grandma sideways as she gulped a glassful of vodka. " this is me time, drawing directly from the wells of my favourite beverage and quenching all thirst," Grandma explained, her shaky hands re-filling the glass with another round of liquor.

Having had lunch together with her grandmother, Sarah took her baggage out of the old house into the trunk of her green saloon car.

"Goodbye Grandma, it has been such a wonderful time with you. You have been such a wonderful companion. I am going to be so bored away from you," lamented Sarah, a tear slipping away from her ruby cheeks before the back of her hand could intervene.

"Oh dear, do not despair. Here is Clamour. She is a pretty little cat. She can be your pet. You will assuredly enjoy her company. She is fluent," assured Grandma, with a suspicion-arousing grin as she handed over the fluffy felid to Sarah.

"Fluent? What was that meant to mean?" inquired Sarah, her eyebrows narrowing into a distorted dome.

"Sorry Sarah, I am just from the courts of King Beverage and I didn't remain the same," wailed Grandma, covering her countenance with her palm.

Sarah sat at steering wheel with her new companion perched in the seat next to the driver's. With the intermittent shifting of posture and position, it was evident that Sarah was not comfortable with the manner in which the contemptuous creature's beady eyes zoomed her in and out.

"Nature can really mean to be sarcastic. Look what humour fate did to your face," chuckled Clamour as she wagged her hairy tail.

Sarah nearly knocked down a crossing cow as she restrained herself from jumping out of her skin.

" What! A talking cat?" exclaimed Sarah, her eyes widening like inflated balloons and her lower lip reaching out for the ground.

"Not really Sars, rather, it is a catting talk, if you wish to understand it that way," retorted Clamour as she lifted up a front limb towards Sarah, revealing a set of sharp blood-thirsty claws.

Awe disfigured Sarah's face and a vein popped out on her forehead. This particular blood vessel never lost the opportunity to announce its presence whenever Sarah met with terror.

"Don't worry Sarah, the first forty years of childhood are always the hardest," comforted the word-generous cat.

With a heavy sigh, Sarah pulled over the squeaking automobile into the parking space of her apartment.

" I didn't like that noise though. I guess your little toy has been photosynthesizing throughout the journey," commented the inscrutable cat as she cat-walked through the opened front door into the bedroom Sarah had just entered.

"Don't mind me," smirked Clamour, glueing her beady eyes on Sarah as she slipped into her night clothes. "nice wrinkles though," she added.

"What's wrong with you, Clamour? Why the Clamour?" questioned Sarah, with clenched fists.

"As long as you don't murder the Queen's language, we're good. I'm sorry that my brutal honesty inconvenienced your ego," apologized Clam.

Sarah brushed the rude remark off and focused on her sketchy dance moves as she swayed and bounced to the rhythm of 'Single lady', her favourite song that was playing in the background.

"Impersonating Beyoncé is not your destiny, child. Don't get bitter, just get better. You have miles to go before you reach mediocre," remarked the weary cat, transfixing a stern parental advisory gaze at Sarah.

The following morning, Sarah bumped into Clamour sitting all by herself in the misty backyard. Her jet-black fur swayed to and from under the rhythm of the cold breeze. Sarah noticed Clamour looked like a cat ghost but she never dared to tell her. The plumpy cat seemed lost in thoughts as her wet eyes stared ceaselessly at the bending tree before her.

"Good morning ma'am? What could be bothering you this hazy morning? You seem depressed," noted Sarah, sitting next to the puffed up cat.

"Nothing much, child. I have been thinking about Tom. Tom was a handsome cat who lived at the cliff near Grandma's house. I always spent my weekends with him. Memories of Tom keep lingering in my mind. However our intimate relationship was severely damaged when he started being abusive and aggressive towards me. On our last week together, the fool nearly three me down over the cliff. I guess he had used catnip that evening. 'YOU WON'T KILL ME!' I assured him and walked out of his little ninth life. I have not seen the wretch again since that day, when I realized the world still needs me. Looking back at Tom ,in retrospect, he was such a nice chap. He really made me feel like the queen I am. I couldn't manage his lethal romance, though," sobbed Clam, wiping a tear with her paw.

"I'm so sorry Clam about what happened to you. Relationships can be tough especially when you are a mean cat," explained Sarah, reciprocating the stern look Clam put on her narrow face whenever she made a 'point' as she gently passed her fingers through Clam's quivering blanket of fur.

"You have the liver to tell me that," bolted Clam.

"You mean guts, right?" chuckled Sarah.

"You want to stop touching me. He who holds a cat by the tail lives to tell the tale. We cats know that. I'm just cautioning you," advised the infuriated creature, gazing steadily at the perplexed Sarah.

" What? Why?" stammered Sarah, swaying her arms in confusion.

" Don't talk to me. I have a reputation out here," bolted the indifferent cat as her tiny feet swept the background, barely touching the ground.

With a firm grip on the trunk of a tree, the disgusted cat was in no time among the branches, fanning herself with a leaf and looking down on the one she had abandoned below.