“If that door opens again, I’m running out. They can’t stop me,” I said to myself, looking out the bottom glass window of the French door. My people went in and out of the door all the time, but they always blocked me, every single time. They were not going to stop me this time, though. I was going to get one of those damn birds. I mean, I needed to get one of those birds!
I waited.
“Here they come,” I thought, seeing a figure through the window.
The door opened part way and a foot waved around in the opening, holding me back. It was his foot.
“No, Luna,” he said sharply.
I walked up to it, rubbed on it, and flopped on the floor, rolling on my back.
“Dammit,” I thought.
“Good girl.”
The door opened a little wider and he pushed me back with his foot, quickly moving through the door, closing it abruptly behind him. I started purring, feigning that I was happy to see him.
There were two of them. No, not two birds. Rather, a man and a woman lived in the house. They were nice enough. I was well fed, and the affection was okay. I did not have too many complaints.
But birds? There were tons of those and they lived in the oleanders at the back of the yard above the embankment. I had spent all my free time during the morning looking them through that glass pane in the door. I knew them, all of them. In fact, they had names. There were Fred and Daisy, and all the cousins. They were all there. I watched them all day, every day.
By this moment, though, I had moved to my perch on the back of the sofa. That was my second favorite spot. That’s where I went when I was sick of the birds.
The backdoor opened a second time, but I was too lazy and it was too far to make a run for it. Besides, it was the nice lady that always had food. It was also lunch time.
When lunch came, she poured the hard kibble in my metal bowl, and it sounded like oversized bb’s bouncing on the bottom of the bowl. Up from my perch, I wandered over and started crunching.
“I wonder what bird tastes like?” I thought to myself. “I bet it’s velvety — all those damn feathers.” My kibble was definitely not velvety.
After lunch, I was back at the door again. The birds were there, of course.
“I hate Fred!” I thought to myself. “He’s the worst of the bunch.”
And he was!
Fred was always chasing Daisy around. They would run back and forth, and back and forth. Sometimes, Fred chased Daisy so much she’d flap quickly to the other side of the yard, just to get away. Fred would of course strut over to pursue her. Other times they would flop and flap deep in the leaves of the oleanders, their feathers lazily paddling through the foliage. I swear, Fred was the horniest bird I’d ever seen.
Today, Fred was in fine form. Daisy was coo-cooing and Fred strutted over, chest out, in a fat waddle, his head bobbing to and fro.
“Coo coo coo-coo.”
I hated this part.
“Coo coo coo-coo.”
Daisy flew to the other side of the yard.
“Of course she flew to the other side of the yard, you idiot!” I said to myself. “That’s right! You’re an idiot!”
Fred strutted to the other side of the yard after her, his head still bobbing.
“Coo coo coo-coo.”
“Give me a fucking break!” I turned away. “I’m sick of this shit.”
I wandered back to my perch on the back of the sofa.
2.
The next morning I sat looking out the window again. My people were going back and forth with buckets of dirt. I could see the man holding a shovel. The woman pointed to a mound of dirt. The man walked over to it with the shovel, putting the nose in it.
I could see Fred behind them, under an oleander. He looked like a damned idiot. I did not see Daisy, though. Obviously, she was not there. He wasn’t moving.
The woman motioned to the mound again shaking her pointed finger. I could see she was saying something.
The man put down the shovel and grabbed a bucket.
The woman, still talking, pointed to the mound again.
The man put down the bucket and picked up the shovel again, the woman still gesturing toward the mound.
I, of course, could not hear what was being said through the window.
The man finally threw down the shovel and stormed up to the door. The woman said something to him as he ripped opened door.
“NOW!” I yelled and ran out as fast as I could.
“Oh my god! Luna!” the woman shouted. “She got out!”
“Don’t worry. I’ll catch her!” the man yelled back and ran awkwardly after me, tromping through the torn up earth.
The woman pointed. “She’s over there!”
I ran as fast as I could across the yard and up the embankment, under the oleander, toward Fred, while leaping.
“I GOT YOU, YOU MOTHERFUCKER!” I yelled in midair.
Fred looked at me with panic and jumped, flapping his wings. He went straight up in the air. I landed right where he was, but Fred had already landed in the oleander above, looking down. All the cousins were next to him looking down as well.
It was humiliating.
“I got you,” the man said sweetly reaching toward me.
I rolled on my side, purring.
“See, I got her,” he said turning toward the woman triumphantly.
She scowled.
He picked me up, took me to the door, and threw me inside.
As I looked out the window, Fred flew down below the oleander again with the cousins still looking down.
3.
The next day, it was raining.
As I laid on my perch, I thought about Fred. “I bet he’s hating life right now.” That made me smile. “I’m warm and dry, and he’s out in the cold. I bet even Daisy is giving him the cold shoulder. Stupid bird.”
Outside, the mounds of dirt were wet. The buckets were full of water. Even the shovel was soaked.
“It’s not going to happen,” the man whispered to the woman.
“It might,” she said back at normal volume.
Both the man and the woman were standing in the living room.
“It won’t happen to you. That’s what I’m saying,” he said, still in a low tone.
“You don’t know that. And it’s not like she can understand you.” She looked at me.
He picked me off the back of the sofa and set me on the floor. “Besides, I heard that Siamese aren’t really susceptible,” he said at a slightly higher volume with a forced smile.
“Where did you hear that?” She was whispering now.
Both of them fell quiet.
“You read too much stuff on your phone. That’s all I’m saying. Give the Internet a break,” he finally said.
The rain slowed a bit, and I was getting hungry.
After lunch, the rain had picked up again. The man and woman sat in the living room. I was on my perch again, my eyes half open. She was speaking, her legs crossed.
“When the baby comes—“
“You mean, ‘if a baby comes…’” the man interrupted.
“If the baby comes—“
“We’ll decide.”
“We’ll decide,” she said repeating to him in agreement. She got up and went into the kitchen.
The rain continued.
4.
I could see the man outside through the window. He had his shovel again. One scoop at a time, he filled a bucket. He carried the bucket over to a mound and dumped it out. He then took the empty bucket back to the hole he just dug. I could tell it was hot. The man occasionally wiped his brow with a nearby towel.
The birds were behind him, up the hill, below the oleanders. It was Fred all right and all the cousins too.
The woman was in the house somewhere, perhaps in the bedroom; I did not know where.
I looked intently at the birds. They were having some sort of fucking party.
Suddenly, the woman came out of the bedroom, walked to the back door, and put her hand down to block me as she went out. She ran up to the man. Immediately, she wrapped her arms around him. She did not seem to care that he was drenched in sweat. She said something, but I could not hear it through the window. He then softly put his hand on her belly. They kissed. The man looked terrified, excited, but absolutely terrified. They both turned and headed to the house. Reaching the back door, the man turned the knob, his other hand gently cradling her back. The door opened.
“Oh my God! She’s out!” the woman screamed.
I was running and running! I never ran so fast. Across the yard I darted through the mounds of dirt, past the shovel and buckets. As I reached the base of the hill, I could hear the birds. They didn’t know I was coming. I leaped. Up, I went. Like umbrellas in a whirlwind all the birds flew up in the air. I didn’t care. I knew the one I wanted, and he was not going to get away this time. I bit down. I had his wing.
“Oh my God! She’s got a bird!” the woman was screeched.
“Bad Luna! Bad Luna!” the man yelled, hopscotching through the mounds and holes like they were land mines.
“I got you this time, you fucker!” The words seared through my head like a hot iron. I was not going to let go. The bird flapped and throttled around, tugging on his wing.
“Wait a second!” I looked again. It wasn’t Fred.
“WHERE’S FRED?” I demanded.
“Coo.”
“I SAID, WHERE’S FRED?”
“Coo coo coo-coo.” It came from above me in the oleanders.
“Coo coo coo-coo.” There were two of them.
Wings started flapping and flopping around through the leaves above. Flap, flap flap. Silence. Flap, flap flap.
“Coo coo coo-coo.”
“Coo coo coo-coo.”
“Wait a second! Where’s Daisy?” It took me a second. “Oh my god! That’s disgusting!”
I let the cousin go. “Stupid birds.”
5.
The man and woman sat outside on the back porch, staring out at the mounds and holes.
“I mean, she caught a bird.” The woman was visibly upset.
“So? It got away,” the man responded.
“So, you know, that’s where they get it from.”
“What do you mean?”
“Birds, mice. That’s where they get it from. It gets in their poop.”
Silent for a moment, realizing what she was saying, he said, “I have an idea. We’ll just keep her inside.”
“She’s already an inside cat.” The woman gave the man a look.
He could see she was not going to let it go. “We’ll just be more careful.”
“We can’t ‘just be more careful.’”
He paused for a minute and then asked, “what if she’s strictly an outdoor cat?”
Raising her voice, she snapped, “I’m not going to make Luna live outside!”
After a moment, the woman said to the man, “I’ll call Marcie. She might be looking for a cat.”
The man frowned. Inside, I was on my perch.
Later, after lunch, the two were in the living room again on the couch. She was on the phone.
“Okay.”
There was a muffled male voice coming through the receiver held up to her ear.
“Okay,” she repeated.
The muffled voice continued.
“Are you sure?”
There were two short words.
“Okay. Thanks, Dr. Hutchins.”
A couple more words.
“Thanks. Goodbye.” Looking at her phone, she pushed a button.
“Well?” the man asked.
“Umm. It’s rare.”
“How rare?”
“He didn’t say numbers, but he did say that I have just about the same chance getting it from Luna as I do eating pork chops.”
Confused, he asked, “are you going to stop eating pork chops?”
“Maybe.”
“So, what does that mean?”
“That means you have to change her litter box from now on. And no more birds.” She put her phone down.
The man looked surprised, then relieved, and then he smiled. I sat on my perch, my eyes half open.
The next morning, I sat at my window calmly watching the birds, blinking slowly. I didn’t see Fred. I thought to myself, though, “that is the thing about birds. Birds make more birds, and more birds. And all those birds flop around in the bushes, and then those birds flop in the bushes. There are always birds.”
I watched for a bit, and then I got up, walked over lazily, and jumped on my perch.
“I guess I’ll just have to wait until after the baby is born.” I laid down. “Damn birds.”
