Joyce Bingham
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She screams into the vast empty space of the warehouse. She’s done this before, but lately too often. I meow and wind myself around her trembling legs. I try to keep her calm, stop her going into a coughing fit. She’s drawn others before, the others we don’t speak of. The dangerous others.
Humans are noisy.
Opening the rare cans of food she finds will be beyond me if she goes. There are many rats in this derelict building, and more r in the rubbish piles around it. However, there are some nights when it’s a relief to find a bowl of Whiskas waiting for me.
Humans are can-openers.
The central roof panel of the factory fell away years ago and Human’s garden is directly underneath. It gets sunlight and rain, but little of the vicious winds. We hear the howling as the sand-laden swirls try to enter this space. Together, we curl up in the soft blankets in her private shelter beside the garden. Afterwards there is a thin layer of sand all over us. Now she’s building some kind of screen using a lace curtain. It’s bound to get ripped.
Humans are inventive.
Germinating seeds appears to be difficult. She tries hard, muttering about contamination while flicking through the seed packets like playing cards. The growing soil is temptingly soft, but I’d never shit where I eat. The human however, puts her shit on the thing she calls a compost maker. I wouldn’t put my paws on it, but I give it a good sniff to check on progress.
There are plenty of plants outside, but she complains the edible ones are few, and torn apart by the encroaching sand storms. She should just eat rat with me.
She was harvesting nettles today, got her skin all blotchy trying to wash it clean of sand in what even I considered to be too little water. Tough now, she sighs, as she chews the green mush. Getting too late in the year to grow anything, even if I could germinate them.
She howls again. This time, I leave her to it.
Humans are futile.
I skulk around outside and snatch a juicy rat. I selflessly donate it to her and clean my whiskers, expecting thanks. She picks it up with two fingers and puts it in her shit heap.
The storm last night was the worst. More of the roof fell. We were lucky it was on the other side of the unit. She drags the fallen metal and puts it around our shelter. I help by running up and down the corrugations, testing them for stability. She shoos me away and sits down to eat some mushroomy thing she’s found.
Humans are unappreciative.
Today, she won’t wake, even when I nip her nose and dig in my claws. She smells of death. I leave her in her metal tomb. Go looking for a new human. I’d love a tin tonight.
Humans are alarmingly scarce.
Joyce’s prompts were: In a Derelict Warehouse, a Cat, Seeds
Joyce Bingham is a Scottish writer, living in the North-West of England, whose work has appeared in publications such as Sci-Fi shorts, Flash Frog, WestWord, Molotov Cocktail, Bending Genres, and Ghost Parachute.
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