I am only thinking, mind you, about going outside. I haven't actually decided to do it, but it is a possible consequence of my facing in the general direction of the back door while lifting one foot off the floor. Movement pounds around me like a herd of stampeded buffalo. I see the flash of a gray comet tail and hear something that sounds kind of like this, "m-m-y-w-t-t-t!"
Dazed from the blast, I recover to see what wonder, looking toward that which in time past masqueraded as an ordinary door. But I can see now that in reality it is the steel-cold bars of maximum security, which are at the moment suffering violence at the paws of feline desperation . Minnie the Unfortunate is attempting to scratch and claw her way into freedom.
But then, but then. . . just as soon as her angel of mercy appears (that's me) to throw wide the gates of iron, caterwaul reverses direction, tail to door. She searches me with large and dreadful eyes; I understand I am nefarious mother consigning tragic child to orphandom and a howling blizzard - sans coat, sans hat, sans food.
But before I can say "perverse Minnie," off my pretty scrambles, fast as her fat little body can ripple (which is pretty darn fast). To dark catacombs she hies it- if only to survive but a few hours more - in the warmth and security of the only home she has ever known.
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