bit from a short story

...I was thinner then. Didn't eat so much. I lived with a man and a woman high-up off the ground (touching the earth in the loosest sense). He cared for me and consoled me after baths, picked me up in towels and strutted around the room, both of us naked.

She, like me, had green eyes and lived off of what she could find. That included eggs, biscuits, meats, fish, men, women and those stupid enough to be kind to her. He wasn't as clever as her or I. Sat there looking at her, like a lost dog. For hours, as she ignored him and watched her shows. During this time I developed a love of theatrics and enjoyed having the pleasure of being the sole spectator during their numerous bits. Most drama that I was aware of came from the radio. I was almost happy when I saw the real thing. I felt my pupils widen, my heart sped up. I dug down into the carpet and marvelled at that wondrous thing!

She paced and stepped as carefully as she chose her words. Timing was crucial, I once had to avoid a flying plate. She was magnificent in her cruelty and completely unique in that she felt nothing she said. I knew her wiles and she knew a few of mine. It was impossible for her to outwit me. During these arguments, I would notice her flicking a quick look my way, a 'hold' look; a 'sit' look. But I am no dog and I had her figured out.

The day was getting hotter and hotter, those ridiculous days of sweltering heat which drain the life from everything, even the ground. The sun dictates us all and directs the skies. I was slumped on the windowsill, watching pigeons outside. Pestilent creatures with lizard-feet and dull eyes, like little brown pebbles. In that blinding murk, I imagined squeezing myself under the window and out onto the metal construct which ran down the side of the building in hard black lines. I lurked up to a rotating grey pipe, coughing out steam, and peered through the smoke. Pigeons blabbed aimlessly before me, swooped and cawed at the ledge, wandering parasites of somewhere else. I wished that the sun would fry them up for me on a plate, licked my lips in the steam.

I never imagined killing, or even attacking the pigeons. To be there watching, knowing that I had the opportunity for bloody glory, only a few inches away, was enough. I always slept peacefully on that windowsill and accumulated a certain wealth of knowledge, from observing lives on the street below.

'So, if I love you I must constantly be by your side, asking 'How are you?' 'Would you like anything?' every five minutes?'

'No, but you sit there every single day saying nothing and...'

'And what, it hurts your feelings?' she unleashed a sarcastic half-smile for effect

'Yes!' 'Of course it hurts,' he meant what he said and tried to shake off any physical evidence of emotional pain. Weak creature.

'I just, I don't need it.' 'I'm sick of repeating the same things to you and getting nothing back.'

'Oh look, that is so adorable, look at the cat all crunched in a ball on the windowsill.'

He slumped in the chair, feathers ruffled, holding his head in his hands. I remember waking at this point.

'I don't care about the fucking cat.'

To say this man was clueless, would be an understatement bigger than any other. The comment only increased my hold on him and her love for me. I wriggled, 'cute,' in her gaze, the smile remained on her face. Such a messy triangle in that place, such a horrid life I had back then.

I purred as she tickled my stomach, then picked something out of my eye. Yes, I purred out that unbroken stream of acceptance and feigned love better than she did.

'I know you and your wiles,' I thought, then rolled away from her.

'Listen, we really must figure this out.'

he really meant, 'figure you out,' and the solitude in his voice let us both know he would not

'You know I haven't been able to think properly for weeks, it's as if, I don't know, it's as if my brain isn't working any more, like there's a veil over it.'

'Take the veil off then.'

'If it was that simple, don't you think I would have by now?'

'It's different, and terrifying, I'm allowed only to think in basest terms.'

'That must be terrifying.'

'Making fun of me doesn't help, it's my brain and it's gone mad, it refuses me entry into my own home, it bans food,' 'When I do overpower it and manage to shovel something down, it throws it right back up again.'

'Get a bib,' she snorted out of her nose.

Then there was an odd silence. A silence I never really heard in that room. A pause; reverence to the Cat-Gods of old, for dusty paws in forgotten tombs. I trotted over to my food, already full-up on veneration and began eating hastily.

It was a strange relationship, between those two. One was most certainly in charge and I found it odd that the female took precedence over the male, who did not protest and always, no matter how much noise he made, went back to her fold like a bewitched lamb.

She was away for quite some time, following their latest argument and I was king again, like the old days. I rose under that heavy sun and enjoyed the armchair during humid nights. He spent more time shut away in another room during this time, he made very little noise and often, I had to remind him to feed me. A task, simple enough for any human to understand. What else had he to think about?

My brain has been supplanted, I speak and feel but for what? So these sensory messages can be relayed to a deviant brain, rogue grey-matter, void of any healing abilities. My brain, I know what it is doing. Slowly killing me, making me believe it is all of my own doing, that I am the architect of this collapse. I must keep fit, mentally, and re-establish my position as owner and leader of this house and my own life.

Last night, last night it happened again, a thought that was not my own, I caught it out though. I caught it out, flashing it's light in my eyes so I couldn't recognise it. Running down the empty side-streets of my mind, hiding from my eye, full of cataracts. Now it is obvious, someone or something has been pushing these ideas on and into my brain. Maybe some kind of telekinetic radio-station beaming for hours each day. Subversion...