The duo

Bob and Daryl stood atop the cliff, scanning the empty valley below.

“Meow!”

She wasn’t happy. She had made that very clear.

“Meow!” Her voice grew louder in my head.

“It’s not my fault,” I tried to save face, but she wasn’t wrong. I don’t know what it is with cats; they always know when they’re right.

“I was comfortable. I was content. But no! Mr. Samurai and his honor,” the cat said, her usual snark cutting through.

“I was hungry.”

“You should’ve eaten the rat I got you.”

“I don’t eat rats.”

“Yes, you can. I eat them. They’re mostly cartilage, and even if they have bones, they’re soft and easy to crunch.”

“Eww.” I made a face in disgust, careful not to let her see. “I don’t want you describing what a rat tastes like. And I said I don’t, not that I can’t. For your information, I have eaten a rat before. And they are not ‘mostly cartilage’ — they have more bones than a human.”

“Potato, potahto,” Daryl said, referencing her favorite Phoebe moment. “When have you eaten a rat?” she added, suspicious now. That piece of information didn’t sit well with her, as if I had just challenged her razor-sharp memory.

“In the past.”

“Oh! ‘In the past.’ I should’ve checked there.” Her snark was reaching new crescendos.

“Don’t do that.” Stupid cat.

“In my seven years with you, I’ve never seen you eat a rat.”

“It was before that, when I was younger. You seem to have forgotten that humans live longer than cats.”

“Yeah, my ignorance fails me yet again.” Oh God, I hated her so much. Well, I only hated two things about her. This was the first.

She stopped, looked around as if deep in meditation, then proceeded to lick herself. I watched her finish her compulsive ablutions.

“Why do I do it?!” she said to no one in particular.

“Why do you have to live more than fourteen years anyway? I’m seven years old and I’m already sick of it. It’s wet, it’s dirty, and food is hard to find.”

“Yes, I have noticed the rain.” That was a good one, I thought. Sometimes I swear I can be as snarky as her.

“I still don’t understand why you won’t eat rats anymore, if you have in the past.”

“I guess that’s part of my backstory that I’ll refer to somewhere later in this story.” I never liked cats, even before they could talk. Dogs were more my speed. They loved me, and I loved them. Goldens, doodles, huskies, mastiffs, Jack Russells — I loved them all. I still remembered Moose from Frasier. He was the star of that show, and I won’t let anyone convince me otherwise.

“I found them,” she announced with her sudden revelation meow.

We had come across the end of our little journey — or was it the beginning? We’d soon find out.

“Let’s get this show on the road,” meowed Daryl, the cat; just in case there was any confusion about who was the cat between Daryl and Bob. And that was the second thing I hated — my name. Because, statistically, everyone reading this story thought Bob was the cat.