Shira Musicant

Listen to Shira read her story

The writer had to face the uncomfortable truth: his narrative was out of control. Characters he’d deleted from his first novel were demanding placement in his second. Demanding status in the story – main character status. The cat, a prime example. He had not set out to write a cat story — this was supposed to be a sequel to his mystery — but the critter kept showing up on his pages, screeching loudly, demanding breakfast, scratching furniture, and finally, escaping through the front door someone had left open. And a detective had yet to make an appearance.

But the cat. When it eventually returned home, no one was there to feed it. They were all out, Mom, Dad, Big Sister, Big Brother, trolling the neighborhood, looking for the damn cat. Henry’s cat. So Henry wouldn’t throw a fit. Henry was the youngest, an afterthought. 

Okay, so he was writing what he knew. That happened. But this, of course, was fiction.

The cat was multiplying. “It” turned out to be a “she” and when she’d first appeared at the Olsen’s front door — oh Momma can I keep it? Puh-leese? Realistic dialogue, the writer thought — when she’d first meowed on their porch, she’d apparently already been knocked up. Can you say that about cats? Maybe he’ll google “slang for pregnant cats.” And now, her adopted family was out looking for her – all except Buzz, the big brother character, who had gone to a buddy’s house and was currently smoking weed in the back yard, though he had, in all fairness, first asked about a missing gray tabby, which now was not really missing, but was back home giving birth on the front porch rug to a litter of three kittens. Front porch because it — she — could not really get inside without human assistance. 

Unless she could. Should he veer into magical realism? 

This could be an inciting incident: Henry, who wanted to keep the kittens, versus Mom and Dad with different ideas. But this wasn’t a children’s story, or a coming of age. He really needed that detective.

He should have outlined, kept tighter control because look what was happening to Big Sister, Tippi. In going door to door down Maple Street asking about a striped cat — he should find a name for this cat —she, Tippi, had just met up with boyfriend, Brian. The writer found teenage girls unfathomable — look at his own daughter — but he felt confident with Tippi, as she, true to her name, had tipped onto the couch in the living room that Brian’s family had recently vacated for Church. Church, that was good. He was on a roll with Tippi and Brian there on the sofa Sunday morning, marinating in their hormonal juices. Wait, did he want a teen-age sex scene while Mom and Dad were still out looking for the cat, while the cat was back home licking her newborns, while Brian’s parents were praying in Church, and while Buzz was, well, buzzed? 

Why not? He guessed this was as good a time as any. Get the reader hooked in Chapter One.

 He pushed his own teenagers out of mind, and flexed his fingers, ready to type a steamy scene of groping and fumbling when he noticed that Mom and Dad had separated and Mom was walking down Maple Street, heading toward Tippi and Brian, ringing doorbells and peering in windows. On a nearby street, Dad was looking over gates into back yards, calling kitty kitty kitty. Is that too creepy? Would Mom and Dad do that? Look in windows and over gates? Well, yes. From his own experience, he knew they would do anything to find a cat if it kept their four-year-old from tantruming. Where was he anyway? Mom and Dad, each thinking Henry was with the other, had lost track of their youngest. The writer himself had to search for Henry. 

He found him on the porch with the cat and the kittens. Henry was ecstatic, having just discovered the little ones, and was now naming them: you’re Duck and you’re Duck and you’re Goose! No, you’re Goose. Who wants to be Goose? Eeny meeny miny moe . . . 

While Henry was naming the kittens and the writer figuring out what to do with the cats, Mom walked up the path to the front door of 1212 Maple. About the same time, Dad, following his nose, opened the gate to a back yard on Ash Street where Buzz and his buddy were conversing on the meaning of life. 

He’s writing a family drama. God help him: literary fiction. Where was the detective when he needed him? Story lines tangled as Mom and Dad, each in their own way, wrestled with leniency or grounding. An opportunity for some backstory, perhaps? Mom’s early promiscuity? Dad’s experimentation with psychedelics? The writer was not sure which thread to follow. A sudden clarity washed over him: Lucy. He would call mama cat Lucy. 

Lucy took charge of both the narrative and the naming of her young – Cocoa, Callie, and, after their alley cat sire, Bruiser. She was very hungry, famished, even, and meowed loudly at the front door. Which Henry opened, as Henry was wont to do. In fact, he may have been the original door-opening culprit. 

Slipping inside, Lucy left her darlings on the rug and went right to her food bowl. Henry filled it to the brim, spilling crunchies around the kitchen. Lucy demolished her dinner and daintily stepped around the escapees on the kitchen floor. She would feed the little ones later, after she’d groomed and disappeared under a bed for a good nap. Like Lucy, the writer had trouble sorting priorities. Though he did know that it was close to lunchtime, and that he should make himself a sandwich. Have a nap. And then he’d outline the damn memoir that was pestering him. The detective from his first novel, who was also napping, rolled over onto his back, and began to snore.

What Shira said about the prompt:
It was written with Binx, a black cat, on my lap asleep after his 5 am breakfast.

Shira Musicant, recently retired from her practice as a somatic psychotherapist, writes short fiction and creative nonfiction. Her work has received four Pushcart nominations and can be found in various literary journals including Star 82 Review, Vestal Review, Fourth Genre, SmokeLong Quarterly, Bending Genres, and Milk Candy Review. She is a 2025 People’s Prize winner for the Welkin Mini. She lives in Southern California with her black cat, eight chickens and her husband.
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