Tofu
by Bill Tope
"Silly squirrel!"
scolded the rust-colored cat, licking her fore-paw
and rubbing it briskly across her brow. Leaping
from her position astride a railing tracing the
perimeter of an elaborate sundeck, the squirrel
ignored the cat utterly.
Finally, she put aside her
preoccupation with burying seeds and effectively
reforesting the landscape -- which had been
blighted by wildfires and overuse -- with pine
and deciduous trees, and then glanced up.
The squirrel, known to her
friends -- of which the cat was not a member --
as Tofu, thought the feline a ne'er - do - well.
After all, whenever did cats scurry up poles to
which birdfeeders were appended, to feast on such
delicacies as seeds, nuts and suet, to bulk-up
for the ensuing winter? Moreover, thought Tofu
critically, whoever heard of a mere cat
scrambling across a roof in order to gnaw the
miles and miles of cable TV wires and telephone
landlines into oblivion. These tasks had to be
completed, Tofu knew, and she couldn't do them by
herself.
After Tofu and the housecat
had discussed these issues at length -- in the
virtual (speech balloon) manner of members of the
animal kingdom, the cat suddenly slapped his paw
down hard upon the slender tail of a field mouse,
trapping it under paw. Tofu blinked. It was his
little friend, Meeks, who shared Tofu's penchant
for never-ending toil. Taking the mouse up
between two knuckles of each paw -- no opposable
thumbs, remember -- the cat was about to slip the
little creature between its cat lips, when Tofu
unexpectedly jumped forward and bit the cat
smartly on the tail.
With great fanfare, the
housecat fled and stayed the winter inside the
house, resting uneasily before the crackling fire
in the hearth, trying to live down his
ignominious defeat at the hands of mere rodents.
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