There is a cat in the doorway.

She stares at you. You stare back. Neither of you move.

#

She maintains eye contact with you and blinks slowly.

Cats are said to be majestic beasts. Royalty, even. Goddess Freya led a chariot of cats into battle. Ship-cats brought good luck to a voyage. Your moms talked about a cat who would sleep at the foot of people’s beds before they died. Intelligent, graceful, light on their feet, fierce hunters.

Just yesterday, you watched this cat walk into the leg of a dresser. Then again. Then a third time until she finally changed her trajectory a little to the left.

Whoever said royalty had to be smart?

#

Her tail flicks against the ground.

Throughout your whole life, tail wags meant friendship, but you learned fast that cat lingo is unnatural. Maybe she’s happy to see you and will let you pass. Or perhaps she’ll slap you in the face. Or hunt your long, fluffy tail. Her favorite game.

Through the silence you can practically hear the wind whistling through the space between her small, pointed ears.

#

Your moms named her Calliope, like the muse of epic poetry, mother to the tragic and foolish Orpheus. Like this small idiot could write poetry.

You decided Goblin is more fitting. You’ve seen firsthand how she shambles off like a creature of the night having seen light for the first time in centuries. You’ve heard the weird uncatlike noises, the quAEEEEee, like some demonic, nasally duck on cocaine. You’ve heard the thunk of her jumping (falling) off tables, chairs, beds, sofas.

You remember the dumb look on her tiny little face when she sniffed your butt. Her dumb, tiny, little jaw dropped, the little pink spots on her philtrum making her pig-like, her eyes almost completely green with mere lines for pupils. Like she’d been stunned or stoned, or maybe both. Your sophisticated friends never made faces like that. They showed proper etiquette. The appropriate snort, the correct tail wag, the respectful reciprocal butt sniff.

She is a goblin trapped in the small, patchy colored body of a gravity-philic cat.

#

You shift your weight on your feet. Your joints feel stiff. The buffoon doesn’t care. She’s now cleaning her face, taunting you.

Your prize is in sight. Your favorite bed. Your moms’ bed. It smells like comfort and family and home. Nap number four always takes place on this bed.

The couch behind you and your floor bed are available, but those are for naps one and six respectively. Your moms are not home to intervene, and based on their fading smell, they won’t be home for at least another two naps. By that point you’ll be starving, waiting for one of your favorite meals of the day (dinner, not to be mistaken for your other favorite meal of the day— breakfast).

If you were someone else, you could break the routine, sleep on the couch another time. But you’re not.

The routine must be maintained.

#

You take a step forward.

The beast stops cleaning mid-swipe to her face. Her marble eyes focus on you again, waiting for your next move.

You remember when you visited your grandpa’s forest. He and your moms sat out on the back porch, drinking something vile-smelling and laughing. You made eye contact with a lone deer in the woods. To you, it looked like a mutant hoofed dog, unnatural and bony and way too large. You let out a low rumble in your chest, testing a warning to the monster. Your muscles were tight with potential energy, waiting to burst into speed after it. It had been so much larger than you, and yet frightened of you.

Just like you and this tiny moron in front of you.

#

You take another step, and her speckled paw returns to the ground. Her tail flicks pick up speed. Other than these subtle changes, the rest of her body is as relaxed as before. You are not a threat to her. She rules every inch of this house.

Royalty. Stupid royalty.

Royalty has a throne, and this weirdo’s throne is the bare lap of whichever mom is on the toilet. Or observing them shower between the curtains. You know they also find it weird, but have grown accustomed to it. You know she’s just asserting her place in the family when she watches you from their lap.

You find yourself relaxing backwards.

#

There is a cat in the doorway.

She stares at you. You stare back. Today could be the day your routine changes.

K. A. Sweitzer is a queer fiction writer living in NYC with her partner, her smart, anxious dog, and her dumb, confident cat. When she’s not writing, she’s spouting bird facts at her critique group, playing ttrpgs, and trying to find the next best chocolate chip cookie in her neighborhood.