Harley lay on the couch totally dead to the world, the rectangle of sunlight playing slowly around him, moving across the room as the afternoon wore on. Sudden, he opened his eyes, and surveyed the room. “Damn!” he thought to himself, “Gotta move again.” He uncurled his lithe body, stood up and arched his back stretching his muscles, and took two steps toward the end of the couch, and curled up again in the middle of the sunspot. His eyelids closed, and he was gone in an instant. How does he do that?

“Oh, oh,” thought Harley to himself. “Meal time!”

He looked around the room, and in a deft move slipped off the couch and hit the floor running. “Now where is that dish?” he thought to himself. “I’ve tried to train her to put it next to the pantry, where she keeps all the food, but she’s kind of slow on the uptake. She keeps putting it near the backdoor and doesn’t seem to get that I hate drafts!”

Harley slowed his pace and padded through the dining room, under the kitchen table past a pair of bare legs extending out of furry bunny slippers, and around the refrigerator and out to the back door. No food bowl.

“Damn! I thought so! She’s not gotten around to it yet, and now I’m really hungry.”

Harley turned and silently slipped back around the refrigerator, and leaped onto the kitchen chair across from The Master.

“Well, correction, not exactly ‘The Master,’” thought Harley to himself. “That would be stretching it just a tad.”

Harley looked across the table at The Imposter, and smiled benignly.

“So, still working on that travel piece, are we?” this said softly. The Imposter ignored his query, and continued to pound furiously on the keyboard of her laptop.

“Late for our deadline, are we, Missy?” Harley loved playing with The Imposter’s head. A length of string with a crumpled piece of paper tied to it, and she was yours. But, not at the moment; there was something of greater importance just now.

“If it wouldn’t inconvenience you too much,” he began, “there is a little matter of a missing dish near the backdoor that, if it were there, would be singularly empty, and I was just wondering if, perhaps, it wouldn’t be too much trouble, that you might open a can of tuna and humor me a bit?” Harley was practiced in adding just that touch of sarcasm – not too much, just so – and smiling through it all. “Well, OK, a lot of sarcasm, but still with a smile and a gleam in my eye!”

The Imposter looked up, her flying fingers pausing in mid key-strike, a pencil clenched in her teeth, a slip of hair curling down over one eye.

“Hmmm,” said The Imposter, “Is it that time, already?” and she put the pencil down, pushed the curl of hair back, and getting up, trudged past the counter and opened the pantry door.

Harley watched with a casual eye, and purred softly in anticipation. This early morning courtesy was certainly his due, and well overdue this morning. The Imposter reached in, pulled out a tin of premium tuna, closed the door, and turned back to the can opener on the counter.

She emptied half the contents of the tin into the bowl she’d taken from the drainer, and with a “C’mon Harley,” set the dish next to the backdoor.

“Damn!” thought Harley to himself. “Maybe next time.”

The old grandfather clock in the hall chimed 2:30 in the afternoon. The Imposter had left earlier that morning, and things were pretty quiet in the house. Harley looked out through half-closed eyelids at the new leather easy chair near the front window.

“Ummhhuh,” he thought to himself, “So much leather, so little time!” In a slow and calculated movement, Harley rose from his supine resting, and paused. Across the room he eyed the supple way the leather folded itself along the contours of the easy chair’s arms, the way it tucked in along the crevasses and creases of the seat, and pulled snugly around the corners.

“Ummm,” he murmured under his breath. “So lovely, so attractive, so mine!”

Harley ambled along the baseboard near the fireplace, his eyes not leaving the chair; then in front of the bookcase and around the end-table, arriving in back of his quarry, the easy chair – the leather easy chair.

Harley sat back on his haunches, and breathed in deeply. “Ahhh,” the scent of new leather filled his nostrils, and he closed his eyes, visions of bison ranging across the plains and filling the wide screen of his mind’s eye.

Harley opened his eyes, and stared at the leather chair – it called his name. Then he took a step around the chair and under the arms, until he was standing in front of the treasure. He reached out a paw, just barely touching the soft leather, and shuddered. He flexed his muscles, and his claws slowly extended, deliberately, gleaming and razor sharp.

“Ohhh,” escaped from his lips as his eyes shone in anticipation. Harley tensed his every muscle and held his breath, his hearing acutely registering all sounds in the wider universe of the entire house.

He hesitated again, savoring what was about to transpire. With a gentle touch, and a smooth stroke of his extended paw, he cut a clean swath down the front of the arm. The sound of claws cutting leather echoed around the room, and Harley paused only long enough to register the silence that engulfed those sounds.

He reached out with both paws, and in one swift motion, left a double set of tracks down the length of the chair’s arms. Then, for emphasis, Harley reached out yet again, and drew his claws down the full length of the chair’s arm, leaving multiple tracks of shredded leather and stuffing. Harley licked his paws, and completed his daily ablutions – purring as he cleaned his ears, his face, and his waistcoat.

Harley was sleeping in the laundry room when the first explosion occurred in the living room. It sounded like World War III, and he leapt behind the washer to avoid injury from the ensuing explosions and high-flying shrapnel.

He peered around the edge of the washer, and flames were everywhere, smoke filling the bunker, and loud cries of the injured filled the air. The Imposter stumbled into the laundry room, blood streaming from a wound on her forehead, her eyes wild and glazed, her mouth in contorted anguish, screaming something about a shredded easy chair. Harley retreated into the darkest corner behind the washer, and pulled his steel helmet down close around his head, and like all soldiers in foxholes under the heaviest of firefights, he started praying.

Harley sat patiently on the kitchen chair as the morning sun lit the room. A gentle breeze blew in through the window over the sink, and Harley suspected that about mid-morning, the windowsill would be toasted by solar heating, and he’d have his resting spot conveniently warmed for him.

WWIII had ended with an armistice. Well, sort of. Harley got a swat with a rolled-up newspaper and there was a whole lot of yelling and heated words, before he narrowly escaped and hid out in the laundry room for a couple of days. Then as hunger unleashed it’s claws into his midsection, he ventured out onto the barren and scorched wasteland and looked for his food bowl.

His life most assuredly was in danger, but there was the matter of breakfast. With silent steps across the kitchen, he moved quickly through the study.

“Ahem!” he muttered, scratching the doorway to The Imposter’s bedroom. “One who is not a banker, does not keep banker’s hours,” he said, his voice rising.

No response. Well, there was a slight rustling, as The Imposter rolled over in her bed, but otherwise not much in the way of movement or sound coming from up there.

Harley could hear her breathing change, so knew she was awakening, though ever so slowly. He padded softly onto the carpet and leapt onto the foot of the bed. No response, and no further movement.

“Ah, playing dead,” he said under his breath. “Won’t work,” he added softly through clenched teeth.

Harley stealthily walked up between two long lumps under the blanket, The Imposter’s legs, and climbing onto the rise at their upper-most reach, edged along the undulating ridge up to the shoulder of the mountain range, and stared square into the face of The Imposter, who, being dragged back into consciousness by this feline taskmaster, blinked and opened her eyes, and found herself staring full into Harley’s slate-grey eyes, his nose almost touching hers.

“Ahem,” said Harley.

“Ok, Ok,” mumbled The Imposter, turning over, sliding her arm out from under the blanket, and flipping it off to the side. Harley jumped down off the bed onto the floor and waited at the doorway, as The Imposter slid her feet onto the floor, and stood up. Throwing a worn robe around her shoulders, and rubbing the sleep from her half-closed eyes, The Imposter trudged silently in her slippers across the study and into the kitchen.

“Damn! Who rolled up the shades?” mumbled the grumpy apparition grumpily as she bumped into the chair pulled out from the table. She fumbled with the refrigerator door, and through eyelids at half-mast, rummaged until she found the tin of premium tuna.

“Damn! Who put this empty tuna tin in here? It was half-full last night.”

The Imposter mumbled something incomprehensible to Harley, and dropped the empty tin into the garbage under the sink. She fumbled with the pantry door, and finding a tin of premium tuna, trod sleepily over to the counter, found the can opener, and proceeded to open the tin of breakfast for her charge.

Harley watched through watchful and somewhat jaundiced eyes, as The Imposter paid obeisance to “Felinus Gastronomicus Deus.”

“Damn, I’m good,” she sighed. “Harummph,” replied Harley.

Saturday: a day in celebration of a week where “ya done good”; a day of rest; a day of rejuvenation, recharging the batteries, recovering from a week where “ya fucked up,” which means one doesn’t want to do too many things remotely reminiscent of chores of the homeowner type; a kick-back day, one where one follows one’s bliss, to do nothing at all while sitting around in one’s pajamas.

Then, “Hello! It’s breakfast time! Hey, Harley – com’ere, kitty-kitty! Heeere, kitty-kitty!”

The Imposter looked across the living room at the amorphous Dali blob drooping across the arm of the easy chair, eyes half-closed, taking in deep and easy breaths, twitching an ear every so often, but otherwise lost to another world, another galaxy. The Imposter held out a piece of Swiss – Harley cocked an ear in her direction, and in a move deliberate and aggravatingly slow, turned his head in The Imposter’s direction.

Their eyes meet, and Harley could sense anticipation in her response. “Good, that’s good.”

The Imposter gestured with her entire person, extending the cheese and more importantly herself, reaching out with all vulnerability, waving her hand in a motion of invitation, arching her eyebrows in complement of the gesture, and speaking those words designed to seduce, but which in reality are a pathetic invocation of unrequited love: “Oh, Harley, honey – come to mamma, come here, baby! Come here, boy.”

The eyes invited, the words were breathed to plead the case, and the body leaned forward in anticipation of a “yeah, OK! Be right there.” Fat chance.

Harley stretched languidly, inspected his right paw, and licked it a half dozen times. He sat up on his haunches, not looking in the direction of The Imposter, but just to her left. He turned his head slowly in her direction, and again their eyes meet. Harley blinked and got up, and dropped onto the hardwood floor, and turning away, sauntered casually across the room and out to the kitchen, and out the cat door in the back. “Harummph!”

“Damn, cat hairs all over!” said The Imposter with not a little irritation. “Why didn’t God make a hairless model?”

The Imposter blew on the keyboard, trying to get the tiny and irritatingly electrostatic hairs out from between the keys.

“Or, better yet, why doesn’t Bill Gates design a counter-static device that would repel these loose hairballs and keep my keyboard hair free?” She leaned over, and blew again. “I could get the damned vacuum cleaner, and suck all that loose hair out,” she mumbled to herself. “Ahh, fat chance!” She continued to blow, first from the front, then in a change of tactic and to claim a better angle, from the side.

Harley lay comfortably on the top shelf of the oaken bookcase in the corner of the study, his forepaw draped over the art-deco bric-a-brac adorning the oaken facing.

This was a throwback to his saber-toothed-tiger-ancestor days, something in his DNA. It was a good place to nap, as no one could get up here to bother one, while giving one a vantage point to survey the full range of prey on the savannas. Plus, it irritated the hell out of The Imposter, something to do with cat hair all over the place that she couldn’t get to or deal with.

“Hey, lighten up! Life’s too short to go cardiac over such a little thing,” thought Harley. “Me? I don’t need the stress. That’s why I retire to the saber-toothed-tiger’s lair.”

The Imposter stood at the kitchen sink, scrubbing mightily at a cast iron skillet she’d used to cremate last night’s dinner. Actually, it was a quick-seared roast, which was then to slow-cook in an oven set at 325 degrees for 120 minutes.

The instructions neglected to clearly indicate that the quick-searing step was only to brown the outside of the roast, not perform ritual sacrifice, and The Imposter entered the kitchen on the dead run when the smoke alarm screamed the aria from Puccini’s La Boheme at a thousand decibels.

So, now a little elbow grease, numb knuckles, and a little patience, and the frying pan would come clean.

Harley walked casually into the kitchen, and wearing his natural sneakers, padded silently up to The Imposter, and nuzzled her leg.

“Yeeow…!” she screamed, whipping around and dropping the frying pan, just missing Harley, and herself leaping a vertical 29 inches.

The scrubbing pad landed way over on the stove, and greasy water splashed all over the counter and floor. Harley meowed, and rubbed against The Imposter’s leg again. She looked down at Harley, her hands on her hips, four-letter words searing the inside of her lips and melting the enamel of her teeth.

Harley meowed again, and in a saucy gait, padded under the kitchen table and out of the room, and pausing at the back door, turned to survey all his domain.

Then, with a sniff, Harley turned and stepped through the cat door and out into the King’s backyard.