Conversation with the Cat

I had been sitting in front of the computer this morning for an hour or so when Ottie walked up, sat on the floor and gazed up at me. I noticed her and smiled.

"¡Hola, Papa!" she said.

"Hola, mi gata," I said. "What's up?"

"Nada importante. ¿Qué estás haciendo?"

"Oh, nothing much," I said. "Just checking something out on the internet."

At this she leapt up on the desk and examined the monitor. "¿Es pornografía?"

"No," I said with a chuckle. This cat. "Actually, it's a blog with a review of Expelled. I've been following the comments section the last week or so."

Ottie quizzically cocked her head to the side. "¿Expelido? ¿Cuál es ése?"

"It's the documentary I went to see last week. Remember I told you about it? The one about intelligent design."

"¡Oh, sí, sí!" she said after taking a moment to think. "Recuerdo. El llenó de errores y de mentiras."

"That's the one, though the guy who writes this blog has a different opinion. He found it persuasive."

Ottie opened her mouth wide, tilted her head back and gave a long, deep yawn. She shook her head and licked her lips. "¡Cómo es estúpido!" she said. "¿Tienes una fotografía de esta persona?"

"Yeah, hang on." I opened the profile of this particular blogger and showed Ottie his picture. "That's him."

She studied his face a few seconds. Turning back to me, she said, "Un qué hombre triste él debe ser," shaking her head. She returned her eyes to the screen. "¿Y por qué todos los hombres jóvenes cristianos tienen esas pequeñas barbas tontas en sus barbillas?"

I laughed. "I don't know, but those little soul patches look so stupid on anyone but trumpet players, don't they?"

"¡Sí, muy estúpido!"

The two of us laughed. I pulled a bottle of pills from my pocket and popped two into my mouth.

"¿Cuáles son ésos?" Ottie asked, watching me swallow the pills.

"Neuroleptics," I said.

"¿Para qué?"

"Because lately my cat's been talking back to me," I said.

Ottie nodded. "Eso no es normal." She curled up into a ball in front of me on the desk and began to lick her anus. "¡Esto estaba en gran necesidad de un baño!" she said a minute later, between laps of her tongue.

"How're the gravity experiments going?" I asked. "I noticed another of your Mama's crystal wine glasses shattered to pieces on the floor the other day."

Through bathing her anus, Ottie moved on to the tip of her tail, holding it between her paws as she licked at it, chewing off certain bits of hair. "Sí. Otro experimento," she said. "El trabajo está progresando bien."

"How long until you get the whole gravity thing . . . you know, figured out?" I asked.

"No sé. Debo realizar muchos más experimentos."

"I figured," I said. "Just be sure and let me know when you're done, all right? So I'll know it's safe to buy new glassware."

She looked up from her tail. "Sí, Papa."

Ottie finished grooming her tail, stood and stretched her back. She hopped down off the desk and padded out into the hallway. "Hasta luego, Papa."

"Hey," I called after her, "wait a minute. Where're you going?"

"A la iglesia. La masa comienza en quince minutos."

"Oh," I said. "Right. Okay."

"Soy una gata católica."

I nodded. "I know, Ottiekins, I just forget sometimes. Have fun at church."

"¡Adiós!"

The kitchen door opened and closed, and she was gone. I pushed back from the computer desk and sat a bit, thinking. "You know, that's a pretty good talking cat I've got there," I said outloud to myself.

Toby Benson, on his way to watch TV in the living room, a bowl of cereal balanced on his little plush paws, said, "You got that shit right," as he passed by the door.