30 Days of Prose: Day 10: The Cat Called Anders, Part 1

Prologue

         I don't really remember how I got here; not to this exact spot. A poorly made plan led to a walk in the woods that was meant to end almost as quickly as it started. Yet, as often happens with plans, this one ran directly off course, and now I lay alone, struggling to keep warm while the blanket of crystalline chill falls thickly over me.

I

         I wake with a warm nudge. Confused and groggy, I sit up to find a brightly moonlit night. Cool blues and glassy whites work in unison to accent the sap scented boughs, subdued yet verdant pines stretching into the night-fogged distance. Thinking the warm nudge nothing more than a phantom, a symptom of an active dream not remembered, I lay back down in the sharp down of pine needles.

Some time later, I am awoken by another warm nudge; this one insistent, somehow demanding. As before, I sit straight up to find the color of the oil-painted winter shaping the landscape. Of course, this time is different. This time a cobalt-colored cat dressed in crushed velvet stares back with blue eyes that would make the Gilmore Girls' pale in comparison.

As we exchange stares, the small beast becomes verbally abusive, assaulting me with long, guttural trills from his thickly furred throat.

"What?" I ask.

My quadripedal vistior answers with another violent trill before bounding off into the distant thicket. As you might expect, I return back to my evergreen slumber. As you might further expect, the sleep wasn't meant to last long.

In what seems only seconds later, a sharp jolt shoots warmly through my cheek, immediately sending me behind a nearby pine for shelter. Looking around for the 'coon or fox who'd finally decided I'd make a fine meal, I find only my cobalt friend, licking himself viciously, no doubt trying to get my taste from his mouth. At length, my assailant quits his shower and again engages me in a staring contest.

"What?" I ask for the second time tonight.

He doesn't bother to dignify the question with even his violent grumble this time. Instead, he shoots again like a bolt of smokey lightning back through the tree-line.

"Fine," I sigh, and barrel through the trees after the little creep.