Snowdrift

I woke up in my usual cage. I stayed lying down, with only one eye open.

I looked around at the room and saw a warm fire crackling in the fireplace. The two-legged creature, the human, was looking at a large sheet of paper. I think he mentioned once that it was called "reading the newspaper". Humans are so weird.

I finally decided to get up. The odder of the strange, small animal was everywhere. Then I saw it, coming closer. The man called it a "cat".

It looked at me intensely, as if it were mocking me for being trapped. It walked around, swishing its tail back and forth. The message was clear: "Haha, look at you, loser! I'm free! I can go where ever I want!"

I knew getting mad would only buy me getting hit with the stick, so I ignored it.



My stomach growled. I was hungry, but growling or barking wouldn't help. I was fed a bowl of disgusting cat food every two days or so.

I saw the man put the newspaper on the coffee table and slowly get up, stretching. He came over to me and said, crouching down to my level, "hey, tomorrow's the big day! I get the money, you'll be put in a boat with other animals, and then they might sell your fur or something."

I didn't get a thing he said, but I didn't like it. I hated being vulnerable. An actual human, our greatest predator, was speaking to me, there, in front of me.

I couldn't do anything about it, so I lay back down and closed my eyes.



Early the next morning, I was woken by loud noises, and my cage being lifted up.