Uncling Duties

A selection of conversations with my friends’ cats.

It’s spring, and before returning home to Galway, I’m staying with some very good friends, L & T, for a few days. This means time with their cats, too.

Day #0

L, excitedly, blue eyes sparkling: Would you like to see the children?

ME: Absolutely, yes, please, right now.

We go into the living room, where the children, Kira and Bercow, are on the windowsill. Bercow, a great beast of a tuxedo creature carved from black-furred beef, looks uncomprehendingly at us; Kira, sleek and agile, stares at us with slightly more comprehension, but not as much as she would like to have us believe.

I extend my hand for them to sniff.

L: It’s your beloved uncle, Johannes.

ME, naive: Did you miss me?

BERCOW, sniffing my fingers with powerful shifts of his nostrils, his white moustache twitching: What.

KIRA, her eyes suspicious: Fuck you.

ME: Okay.

We retire to play boardgames, and the children, disinterested, leave us be. Later, when I go upstairs to brush my teeth, I foolishly leave the bathroom door slightly ajar.

KIRA: Beloved uncle! It is time to spend time together!

ME, mouth white with toothpaste froth, one-handed: No, Kira, wait, I don’t want you in here —