​Life on the run is hard. I don’t know what we’re running from or why, but after all these years with my people, I’m in pretty deep. I’d rather cut off my whiskers than let them do it alone. They need me.
 
Our first family escape happened only a year after my adoption. I got the feeling my people had done it before. Our home was emptied and abandoned. I knew we must be running from something awful and that I had to grow up and adapt. I tried to imagine what was chasing us.
 
I still wonder what's stalking us. Could be the law. Or a dog. Maybe a lady wearing high heels. I get pretty scared thinking about anything worse. So many things scare me. After seven years and as many houses, not to mention all those hotel rooms, I’m pretty sure this isn’t going to end soon.
 
But, I’m almost eight. If you do the catmatics, I’m not a kitten. I’m as old as my people. Maybe older! They treat me like a tiny baby kitten, but I've endured the life of a fugitive and now I must step up and face whatever darkness is chasing us. The time has come. I’m the big kitty now!
 
I’m sharpening my senses and quickening my reflexes. No more napping. I have to practice my crouching and running. I need to visualize the monster while I peer around a corner, wiggle my back legs, and POUNCE! I need to eat more crunchy food to strengthen my teeth so I can bite. Food also builds muscles for wrestling. I sit at the window and I watch. I’m ready.
 
But the sun feels so warm and it makes me sleepy. And what good is a sleep-deprived attack cat? No good at all. My people need me to be well-rested and fresh. Just a small cat nap and I'll be ready.

​My person has lost her mind. She thinks she can predict the future. As a cat, I recognize that the future is a myth right up there with unicorns and Bigfoot. Unfortunately, it seems that the majority of people believe the future is real. 
 
At this very moment, I can feel my soft bed. I can hear the refrigerator humming. I can see and smell my person’s shoes lying in the middle of the floor. There’s no denying the present.
 
Before my people, there was a cage. Before that, I had another human home where I learned my best habits, like scavenging for people food. The past is as real as the present but I don’t dwell on it. What’s the point?
 
But the future, what an illogical concept. If it hasn’t already happened and it’s not happening now, how can it be real? But when you love a person, you have to respect her beliefs and so I don’t mock mine for believing in the future. But lately, things have gotten out of hand.
 
She’s really losing it. She’s gone past simply believing in the future to claiming to see it. She has a bottle of nasty pills that she says can alter the future. They taste bitter; that means they're bad. Swallowing one feels weird. Translation: bad. But her belief in these pills' future-altering powers is so strong that she uses physical force on me. It’s almost an unfair fight.
 
“Honey, you have to take this medicine,” she says. “It will make you feel better.”
 
Try as I might, I cannot understand a belief system in which eating this pill creates positive future change. Because it’s not real.
 
It's gotten to where I'm refusing on the grounds that my person is delusional and possibly dangerous. I can tell by her eyes and her voice that she means well and that she really does want the best for me, but being the only sensible one in this scenario, I refuse. I know it pains her when I clamp my jaw shut and spit that pill out. It breaks my heart to see my person so upset. But she's lost her mind and I'm stronger than that.