Saturday Story

After my recent fun writing short pieces for an anthology project, I decided to try my hand at a few more short stories. Really short, and limited in a way that should result in me working hard to edit them. This is the first of my efforts, written this morning in 750words.com and edited once. If you are reading on an RSS feed you should see the story right after this paragraph. It you are reading on my blog itself, you may have to click "Read more" to get the story. Feel free to comment, criticize, enjoy, or ignore.

The Sitting Cat

He saw the first cat in his kitchen after he'd gathered more drinks and chips for the guys. He'd turned out the light when a passing car's headlamps cast a shadow against his wall that looked exactly like a sitting cat. Startled, he'd turned only to see the usual mess of dirty dishes next to the sink. The "cat" was actually a pot and a couple of spoons. He resolved to clean up the kitchen and hurried out with the refreshments.

The next cat he saw was out on the street. For a moment he saw the perfect silhouette of a sitting cat before it dissolved into a woman's coat, an umbrella, and a mailbox. He felt deep amusement at his fancy, and forgot about it until the next cat showed up in the break room: a couple of scraps of paper sitting in the recycle bin looking exactly like, yup, a sitting cat.

For the rest of the day cats continued to appear in the unlikeliest of places. A bag leaned up against a table leg, the shadow of a bird outside the window, the angle of a colleague's jacket in the elevator. Wherever he looked he saw sitting cats. He continued to be amused, even idly trying to doodle a cat when his mother called and went into the whole "get a girlfriend" routine.

Headed for the bus stop to go home, he noted an almost cat in the distance. If he just stepped to his left it would resolve into a sitting cat. So he did, right into somebody else's path. The cat was forgotten as he helped the woman he'd nearly knocked down by his unexpected move. He saw green eyes and a pretty nose. "I'm sorry," he started, just as she began, "Oh, excuse me!" and they both stumbled to a stop. His eyes dropped from her face to the collar of her shirt where there was a small pin... of a sitting cat, winking at him. He couldn't stop the happy grin from spreading across his face as he looked back into her eyes.