February 8th My School

To write from an animal’s perspective.

I have an important job, more so than my roommates, more so than the slouches and bums who just stay at home all day. I am responsible for the big building my human goes to every day. Well nearly every day, some days he just wont let me go out, something like ‘sonday no fonda’ or however he says it. Then he’ll take his foot and block me from going out the door with him, even after he had the audacity to sleep in.

We walk to work each morning with my human and I and wait for the little humans to arrive in their different colored big loud contraptions. I am smart and had learned very quickly that most of the time these things will wait for me, or at least stalk me slowly till I get out of the way. The other cats are still figuring them out. Each of them arrive in twos and threes and I make sure to walk past each one just making sure they are who I know should and shouldn’t be there. Sometimes there’s a new one but the little humans do a good job of explaining to them my toll of ear scratches, back pets and sometimes, if I want them, belly rubs. 

After they do their standing and all talking at the flapping things I follow the kids and my human inside. They are all my humans during this part of the day, but he’s my human. The kids will take their bags and leave them in the hall before going to their room where they sit for the majority of the day, one human, often one of the big ones will hold the door to the smaller humans room open for me to come on. Here while they are listening to the big human speak, with all the attention of a kitten, so none really, I will walk their room. I sniff at their spaces. I paw at the doors making sure they are shut, and eventually I sit on the big human’s desk and wait till everyone else sits down before receiving my pets for a good patrol. 

After a few minutes one of the little humans will come to the desk where I’m waiting and be handed a piece of paper. I’ve learned I can not, or at least should not, damage these papers. They are almost always anxious up here at the desk, but I sit with them while they do their work. I’ll do this for a few of the little ones, being there for them like a parent supervising a kitten learning to pounce or climb. 

When the little ones are let outside for their play time I use the opportunity to go check on my human. He rarely sits still but the other two in his room often stay at their desks. If he is not there I will check on his other two and any strangers who happen to be in this space. This is where all the new people enter and my human makes sure they are supposed to be there, I think. There are some people who never get to go past this room to my other humans. 

There is a spot in the wall I can pass through to my humans space, if his door is close, and where the strangers stop and do something with a stick and a piece of paper before they can go on into the building. I often will lay here or on the table on my master’s side of the window for a bit, often my mid morning nap. If I don’t this is where I’ll stand at the door to the outside and wait till the next person passing lets me out. Here I will go out to where the loud contraptions sit during the day and check them out. I have to make sure they are the ones that are supposed to be here. 

Back inside I do try to go to where the humans are eating, but it’s one of the places they just won’t let me go. I can see through the clear door, they are eating, they should let me eat with them but they don’t. Sometimes I can get one of the smallest humans to let me in, but the others put me back out pretty quick. So I wait till the eating periods are done and go  back inside after the big-little humans. Their tables are bigger, more space for me to lay while they work on their paper and more room to patrol. 

As the day starts to wind down I head back to my human’s room for my mid day nap. Here I have a bed placed for me, not one to share, not one to smell the others on, mine. It doesn’t mean I always use it, sometimes I just use the human’s desks, their papers, or the long thing with all the buttons on it my human is always playing on. His two hands moving all over it when they should be rewarding me for my day of hard work, patrolling is hard. 

When I wake up from my nap it is dark and I realize my human has left me in my bed so I move into his chair and go back to sleep. Eventually I’m woken up by him picking me up, he never leaves me here to long and if he’s carrying me he realize he left me here and is taking me home for cookies and dinner. 

I am a patrol cat. I patrol the rooms of my human, the little humans, and the bigger little humans. I get paid in head scratches, pets and sometimes belly rubs. I have my own bed like they have their spaces. Who says only a dog can be security.

2025 February Flash Fiction Challenge: Day 8 - Writer's Digest