“Good Morning, isn’t it a wonderful day?”
Sunlight filters in through the window; I’m never up early enough to see bright rays in my bedroom. The sun is usually much higher in the sky when I fall out of bed. I pull the sheet up over my head and camp out. Fat walks across the mattress and her paw touches my exposed foot.
The whole limb recoils at her touch and I pull the edge of the sheet under my body so she can’t burrow under and find me in my sleep fort. “No. Bedtime.” Surprisingly, my own shouting does not wake me up further.
“Wakey, wakey.” There is a two-second reprieve from her talking. “What kind of death whiskey were you drinking last night? I can smell your breath from here.”
Fat heaves herself up onto my hip and walks down onto my ribs. Her weight crushes my bones; I throw the sheet off my body and she gets lost underneath it. “You know I’m recovering from a late night. What is your deal, Fat?”
I watch the mound of her body move under the sheet in a half circle before doubling back around. “It’s time to greet the day and fill my bowl.” Her head becomes exposed when she finds the edge of the sheet, she shimmies the rest of her big self out. “Don’t you think you’re a little old for these kind of nights?”
Before I can enter outrage mode, iPhone beeps with a text message. I reach to grab it off the nightstand and read a message from my friend in Ontario. The suspicion is at home on my face when I eye Fat. “Are you in cahoots with our future roommate already? Both of you are asses for waking me up. I don’t think I like the idea of you two united under the same roof.” I look at the message still displayed on the phone screen and growl at the phone as though it’s connected to his ear. “You know how early it is here, jerk.” There is a loud clunking noise when iPhone hits the nightstand.
Fat waits a moment as if giving me the opportunity to come to a realization. “You know he can’t hear you, right?”
I lie back down and intelligible words disintegrate into a sleepy mumble. “I know.” Easily, my eyelids shut and I’m back on the cusp of falling back to sleep. The blackness behind my eyelids encompasses me and I drift…
A familiar paw touches my cheek and pulls me back to the land of the conscious. “Still neglected over here. Stomach’s grumbling.”
“No, Fat.” I yell again and hide my face in my arms.
Fat’s claws tap on my elbow. “We both know how this ends. Save yourself the trouble.”
“Fine.” Exasperation is ever-present in the single-syllable. My feet hit the ground and Fat leaps off the bed as like a tennis champion hurdles over the net. “After you,” I gesture with my hand at the doorway.
Fat prances through. “Thank you.”
After many attempt to make this happen in the past, I shut the door tight behind her and flop back into bed.
“Hey.” I hear the pathetic scrape of her nails on the wall outside my bedroom.
“You said we both knew how this would end. I know it ends with starvation. Enjoy your fabulous morning, wretched beast.”