Cat and Mouse

I can feel it watching me across the vast savannah

Its diamond pupils never leave me

Through the towering grass

Watching my every move as I hover over my hard-earned meal

It envies me and my treasure

Wanting me dead—or worse

I raise my head and sniff once, twice, three times

It is still there

I can feel it in my whiskers

It sends a chill down through my tail

But where to run?

Surely it will follow me home…

***

I feel it come closer

Hear its feet crunch on the leaves

It is still watching me

Those diamond eyes that everyone finds so fascinating

I must run!

***

I scoop up my precious crumbs and dash through the grass

The diamond eyes follow me each way that I turn

I cannot shake the feeling of being followed

Yet when I turn, I see nothing there

Nothing, but I know it must be right behind me

This menace of the savannah

Its diamond eyes searching for me as I dart

This way and that

Trying to lose it

Forever failing

Forever in its line of vision

***

Then finally

Finally…

I see the hole that is my home

And I duck inside

Just before a furry paw swipes at the entrance

Narrowly missing where I had been

***

But I am safe inside my hole

No diamond eyes can reach me here