Scaredy Cat

One summer my mom and dad decided to get a kitten. And my mom immediately came home with a little orange ball of fluff. He was a cool looking cat, his coat kinda like the surface of Jupiter.

But it turned out, he was the biggest scaredy cat I'd ever met. With huge eyes, much like the orange cat in Puss in Boots, this little guy was always terrified. And, his place of refuge was the guest bedroom where I would stay when visiting my parents.

The first day I met him, I arrived at my parents house and went to drop my stuff in 'his' room. He was in there, a tiny cat sleeping on the top of the seemingly endless bed. He was absolutely horrified by my existence, and I spent the day trying to win him over with zero success.

Then night came, and he ran into his room where he fully intended on sleeping under the bed. The problem was, I later went in there and closed the door, which was not at all what he wanted to happen.

When he heard the door close he ran out from under the bed in alarm. I was like, Oh cool! The kitten is in here! I decided to just leave him alone and get ready for bed. But, I didn't open the door.

I got ready for bed, while he watched me, and I finally went to the bed and pulled back the comforter.

He lost his mind.

He started running around the room in a full panic, eyes huge, tail puffed, ridge on his spine. At first I was confused at why getting into bed caused this reaction, and then I realized, no one had ever slept in the bed since he'd lived with my parents. He had no idea the comforter could move. I was essentially peeling apart his castle, layer by layer, and it was not okay.

I was unable to catch him, but I did open the door and he ran into the blackness of the living room. The next day he refused to look at me.

I think it would be easy to laugh this away, making jokes about cat brains and in particular, orange cat brains, but there is something out there, lurking for all of us, that is as disruptive as witnessing a giant peel back the roof of your bed.

It's something you never expected could happen, and when it does, it initially seems insurmountable, and then life goes on. The bed reassembles itself. Your homeostasis reassembles itself. And you realize, the blanket was always meant to move, you just didn't know it.