I was furious when the movers came. It’s a hot afternoon in June, nearly three months since my human died. From my perch on the neighbor's fence, I watch them pull up to my human’s former house and- with stunning audacity- begin to cart boxes of books, furniture, and kitchen appliances to their huge moving van. They completely ignore my protesting meows, screeches and yowls and quickly finish the job, even going to the trouble of closing all of the house blinds and pulling up the ‘for sale: sold’ sign from the lawn before leaving. In any normal situation I would have applauded the humans for being so through- but I’m not really feeling it today. How dare they! This is my house!

“But it isn’t your house...” Erin says. “Cats can’t own houses...”

“Yes. I. Can. My human’s nephew might be getting it, but I was her best friend. It should be mine- if anyone’s.”

Erin is my best cat friend, and lives in the house next door. She came to join me on the fence and offers me soothing meows while I yowl at the movers and work myself up against inevitability.

“Come on, Mayberry. It was going to happen eventually,” she says. I know she’s right, but I won’t admit it. Instead, I jump off the fence and stalk over to the walnut tree in her front yard, flopping down with a huff. I won’t look at Erin, even when she flops down next to me.

“You need a hobby.” Erin tells me.

“I don’t want a hobby. Besides, what would I do? I’m not interested in daring dogs or collecting the labels off of cat food containers.”

“Be creative. Remember when we were kittens?” Erin says. “Granny Aibyouka had just brought you from the cat shelter, and you wandered over too my lawn like you owned it. You had so many dreams… to see the inside of a firetruck, to climb the tallest tree in Dawson, to steal dog food from Pierce's bowl… why don’t you finally try to fulfil one of your ‘kitten-hood dreams’?”

“I don’t feel like doing any of those things...” I say. It’s really nice of Erin to try to cheer me up- but I’m just not interested.

“You could go searching for buried treasure at the lake… or go doorbell ditching…?”

Ug, where does Erin get her crazy ideas? I almost tell her off… then I remember spouting those ‘crazy ideas’ after sneaking through her cat-flap at 3 o’clock in the morning hyped on dog food. That was back when we were kittens, though. I guess I’m middle aged now, and all of my kitten-hood dreams seem so stupid.

Erin was still talking. “...And that wasn’t even your worst idea! Remember when you told me you wanted to rule the world?”

Wait a second.

That’s not a bad idea.

I could tell that Erin immediately recognized the look on my face. She wanted to get me more involved, right? To get my mind off of my human’s death, right?

Her voice was nervous. “H-h-how ’bout we go eat now, Mayberry..? I’m sure Emma has left some food out for us…”

“You know what, Erin?” I ask, a whiteboard, laser pointers and bullet-pointed top secret documents popping into mind. “I think I need a hobby.”