It's like they all live in this prison house. Kind of like Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner. It's comfortable, people are there to take care of you, and there's no escape. All the cats live in a tense cease fire, like the DMZ between North and South Korea. They don't get along.
One of the cats, we'll call him Mr. Orange (for obvious reasons), is very friendly with people. Any people. This cat is in love with people. He will try to make out with you if you let your guard down. It's harassment. He's very fun and cute and cuddly. But he's evil to everything else. Have you ever heard how charming sociopaths are? You know, the nice guy next door who no one ever suspected. It couldn't be him, he's so nice! Yeah, unless you're the cat that he hunts down in the night.
Two of the other cats are some weird kind of black and white, old-ass, bathroom carpets. They look like hell. I have no idea how old they are, but they appear to be playmates of Cleopatra's cats. We'll call them MM. Noir et Blanc. They are super old dudes who are terrorized by Mr. Orange, everyday, all of time.
The last cat, Mr. Siamese, if you please, is the aloof, cool guy who doesn't need any hassles from anybody. He chills by himself and keeps one eye open to monitor his surroundings. The dalmation, Mrs. Dalmation, acts like the UN peacekeeping force. No disrespect, but she gets in there at every disturbance with some barking, but doesn't actually do anything. Her job, apparently, is to make me aware of whatever is going on. When I look up, the cats have resumed normal cat positions from whatever battle mode they were in. The look all innocent and boring. But Mrs. Dalmation knows different.
This morning, I was sitting at the dining table, reading the movies section of the paper, and all of them were hanging about around my feet, loitering as if there was nothing to do in this prison except pretend to act cool. M. Noir keeps a healthy distance from Mr. Orange, but M. Blanc is more brave. So, we're sitting there, and it's quiet - a little too quiet. I look down at the bunch. Mrs. Dalmation is laying down on my foot, tail furiously wagging, but eyes arched up, spotting the locations of the feline brood. The others look around at each other, suspicious of everything, every noise, every breeze, every whisker's movement.
They act all calm and boring, but their eyes show better. They are entrenched in a life-long game of cat and cat. It's like a sub crew. Five months of trolling the north seas, waiting, listening, maneuvering for signs of an enemy sub, with only thirty seconds of intense action, causing the whole thing to start again. More waiting, more watching.
They must have made their peace with this situation a long time ago. Otherwise they would be dead of stress. All except Mr. Orange. He is in control. He has nothing to fear, because he is the nightmare shared by everyone else. He is the baddest cat in town. I wonder, though, if someday this week I'll get off work and see him on top of the book case and the others surrounding it, looking up with much interest. Mrs. Dalmation will drag me over and bark, "See what's going on!"
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