Fancy Dress

The Cat's Tale

I lead a simple life, idyllic some might call it. A soporific life of retirement on a farm in rural England. I have a choice of sofas, sun-drenched windowsills and the spare room has bunk-beds, should I fancy a change of view.
Dinner is laid out for me and breakfast appears like magic. I only have to yowl and my ears get scratched or my tummy rubbed.
And yet one thing mars my life. Well three things to be exact.

You see, I'm a cat. Oh you guessed that did you? Well you might well be wondering whatever could ruin such a perfect existence; I'll tell you. Parrots.
The woman who lodges with me ' it's a reasonable arrangement, she provides the food and the tummy rubbing, whilst I endure her music and stop her from using the laptop for too long ' has these vile sub-letters. Yes okay, one might argue that she and Taliesin had some mutual agreement before I moved in (retirement remember?), but the twins arrived after I did, and I strongly suspect this violates our tenancy agreement.
Admittedly we've never formally written anything down, it's taken for granted that I look after the place whilst she spends all day somewhere called Work. I've never been there, but judging from the amount of time she spends there and the speed at which she leaves in the morning, it must be amazing. Likewise, I am very careful with, how shall I put it, the tray within which one relieves oneself. She takes up entire room for her ablutions, whilst I make do with a quick lick-down on the sofa. Our relationship I must confess does sometimes feel rather one-sided.

So you can imagine my disgust when she came back to our home one day with another two of these noisy, fluttery things. They have beaks for goodness sake. And talons. And, rather than make do with the usual two dimensions normal folk do ' forward and backward, left and right ' they fly. That means they can attack on three different fronts. Trust me, you do not want to deal with an aerial bombardment whilst dreamily staring out the window. The litter tray is always too far away.
Oh and attack they do. They circle around the room, flying tightly near the ceiling, whizzing round like their tails are on fire and then suddenly ' whoosh! Talons and feathers and that hard, polished beak is, well it's just there. And as if that isn't enough, the wretched little things then strut around the room, long feathered tails flittering across the the floor. I've heard her, that is my co-tenant, frequently explain how cats and birds can cheerfully live together.

Well excuse me. When was I consulted? Now your younger cats, your hunters and your stalkers, they might happily live with squawking poo-makers and sociopathic dive-bombers. Indeed I should imagine it would be quite satisfying to leap on their backs and chew their necks for a change. And I admit, those tails are tempting sometimes. However, I am a lady of more somber and advanced years, and ' even if the joints would let me ' feel such juvenile behaviour is quite beneath me.
Frankly if I didn't need the Co-Tenant (fancy having to prepare your own meals!), I think I would have her evicted, but would settle for having those arrogant little feather-bags out of the house.

Would you like one? They're really are very nice'



Word count: 563
Prompt: Be an animal.



***Note from the co-tenant: Tinks really is a lady feline of retirement years, and right now she's curled up next to me on the sofa - completely ignoring Taliesin (one of the ariel terrorists mentioned above), who is climbing all over said sofa, and co-tenant. So, dear reader, I beg of you - don't believe everything she says