Catnip

Tim knew he should be working.

There is always too much to do these days.

It was Saturday, though, and it had been such a long year. 2021 hadn’t started much better, but he was trying to stay optimistic. He reflected on this while he, once again, paused his work and was now idly scrolling through Facebook.

An ad caught his eye. “Win $20,000 in a writing contest”, the ad declared, “just submit a short story, 600 to 2000 words and include the mention of both a little black notebook and someone recieving $20,000 in the story.”

“Wow,” Tim thought, “I haven’t written for fun since I was little.”

This was an excellent opportunity to see if he could get his creative juices flowing, and writing practice is good for his regular job. Stories were always popping into his head, only to slowly float away undocumented, so this would be easy. Plus, $20,000 would be really nice.

He set to work arranging his workspace. He did his normal work in the basement. The close ceiling and exposed rustic feeling wood was a great setting for technical writing, and data analysis, but not for creative work. The higher ceiling in his living room worked better for that. He was pretty sure he had read higher ceilings were better for the creative process.

He cleared his coffee table, uncovering the beautiful wood slab. Then spread out the grey electric blanket over his rich brown-cloth couch. As he sat down, joined by his cat and a hot cup of coffee, he opened his old laptop.

“I would definitely get a new laptop,” he thinks as he hits the same key with increasing intensity. Finally, the black circle appears, indicating that letter of his password has now been entered. Opening Word, he starts to feel excited. He’s written a lot over the years, but in science, it involves constant referencing. This work is different, it will all just flow from his head. Maybe he’ll write a story that will require SOME real-world references, just to add a sense of detail, but nothing too serious. He begins to wonder what he should write and waits for a story to form in his mind.

About one hour later, having made no progress, he is once again idly scrolling through Facebook when his cat says, “I can help.”

To which Tim does not reply.

“I said,” repeats the cat, “I can help. You know?”

“I don’t really want that kind of help, okay?” Tim replies.

“Do you want a new laptop?” the cat asks, already knowing that Tim would probably like a new laptop.

“I can buy one if I really decide I need it, I don’t need the money for that,” deflects Tim, as he shifts under the now uncomfortably weighted heat of the cat. This jostles his laptop, causing his knee to tap the laptop where it covers its memory, and this causes the computer to immediately shut off.

"Fine,” he relents, “How can you help?”

His cat purrs and snuggles deeply into the heated blanket cocoon.

====================================================

Months later, having forgotten about the contest, Tim is quite surprised to find he has won. $20,000 is on the way to his account, the email says.

“I guess I’ll need to read that story before I get surprised by any questions about it,” he chuckles to himself, “thanks, cat.”

“Did you check the porch?”, asks his cat.

Tim looks at the cat suspiciously, but from the door, he now sees a small black notebook sitting on his porch. He reaches for the doorknob, and his cat is already there. She is angled perfectly, ready to sprint out of the door as soon as it is cracked open.

“Is this just a ploy for me to let you out onto the porch?” Tim asks.

“Maybe.” Says the cat. Her head staying aimed with laser focus, poised like a runner waiting on their mark.

Tim opens the door and watches his cat, who looks back at him and then saunters away, back into the house, tail jittering happily.

When Tim reaches for the notebook, he shouts, jumping back, and stares in disbelief. “Oh. This is bad.”, he says, as he reaches again, bracing himself this time. Touching the book feels like a minor electric shock from a low voltage alternating current. Something between painful and just a vibration.

“What is this?” he asks his cat.

“That's the list of people you can murder." the cat replies smugly, "You have to pick one."

"What?!" quickly leafing through the book, "Some of my friends are in here!" Tim cries but also notices many people he does not know and confirms, "I only have to pick one?" and before the cat can respond, "Hey, I am in here too!?”.

“Correct, you only have to pick one.” the cat replies. Smugly.

“I don’t think I can decide something like this. What happens if I don’t decide?”

“You already have decided, though.”

“No, I haven’t, that’s not true. What do you mean?”

“Did you ever read YOUR story?”

Tim has already opened his laptop and is hammering away at the sticky key in an attempt to enter his password, trying not to let the sinking feeling or repeating hot flashes show on his face. He knows he is being carefully studied by his cat, looking for satisfaction that he refuses to give. “This is such a cliché, you know?” he demands at his cat, "Putting a negative spin on a wish?"

“You wrote it, though, right? If you didn’t write it, then you can’t claim that prize money. And I’m a cat, I can’t claim it, I think there was an age restriction.”

Tim opens the Word document titled “catnip.DOC.” and impatiently taps his finger, waiting for the little circling dots to stop circling on the blue background and show him the story. Finally, he reads that the story begins, “Tim knew he should be working.”

He glares at his cat, who is sitting calmly on the steps leading to the living room. Now idly watching him with half-open eyes in apparent disinterest before slowly looking away, towards something more interesting. She is now intensely analyzing an empty wall.

Tim scrolls to the bottom of the page to find what choice he made and is not really surprised to see his own name. Timothy M. Pierpont. “I guess I knew that was coming,” he said.

“That’s because you’re a bad writer,” his cat confirmed, “You should have stuck to science.”

“But your story ends at my name.” Tim points out.

“Yes,” said his cat, “I thought I’d leave the gory details up to you. Plus, it was a more dramatic ending. You think you would have done it differently?”

“It doesn’t say when.”

“What?”, the cat asks, with barely concealed irritation.

“It doesn’t say when I’ll do it,” Tim explains, “just that I will.”

“Well… I mean… It is clearly implied that you’ll do it soon. You know that!” the cat insists, slightly rattled.

“You wrote a cliché story and left the world’s most cliché loophole in the contract? Now, who’s a bad writer?”

The cat stood, turning to leave. Then turned back. Then considered running up the cat tree. And finally sat back down and began violently licking her tiny, cute, little paw. “You don’t know that I didn’t do it on purpose. It isn’t like you're the worst human in the world.”

Tim turns on the electric blanket and drags it across his lap. “C’mon,” he says, patting the already warming blanket while making kissing sounds. The cat responds by leaping onto him and setting to work excavating a cozy heated nest. “I still kind of hate you, you know?” asks the cat, purring happily.

“Well, you’re kind of a jerk,” Tim retorts, as he taps one of the keys on his laptop with increasing intensity, trying to enter some information to initiate the purchase of the new one. With his other hand, he softly strokes the cat, "What should we do with the rest of the money?"

To which his cat does not respond.