Saturday is Caturday: THE FERAL CAT UPSTAIRS : A Feline Noir. Post your Kitties!

 

I wrote years and years ago during a harrowing chapter in my life. Since some of you liked my noir writing. I will share this one with you. I hope you like it.

  THE FERAL CAT UPSTAIRS:
 A Noir Confessional in 9 Lives or Less! 

I’ve never seen him, not clearly.
A silhouette, once—on the landing. Shadow on shadow, staring back like he knew all my secrets and none of my boundaries. He blinked once. Slowly. The universal cat sign for you are beneath me but useful. Then he was gone. 

We call him “Upstairs,” like a ghost or a rumor.
 He doesn’t meow. He doesn’t purr. He thuds. Late at night, just as you’re drifting off or trying to decide if carbs are still the enemy, he makes his move. A heavy-footed gallop across the ceiling like he’s chasing God or dodging rent. 

I’ve questioned my sanity, naturally.
 Asked the neighbors, the landlord, the moon. No one claims him. No one feeds him. No one has ever seen a litter box. And yet the scratching continues. The thumping. The single long drag of something across the attic floor at 2:47 AM.
I once left a can of pâté on the back stairs.
 In the morning, it was gone. The can, the lid, the contents—vanished. In its place: one single pine needle, placed precisely in the center of the dish. A message. A warning. A sign.

He is either a cat, or something more.
 A revenant. A cryptid. Or worse—a divorced man in a tabby suit. But deep in my bones, I know the truth. He is an ancient. Older than whiskers, older than shame. He remembers a world before Fancy Feast. He chose this building. He chose us.

Sometimes I imagine he’s watching me. 
Judging my failed romances and my skincare routine. Plotting. Or perhaps pitying. Maybe he’s a cat who used to love someone, once. Maybe he stayed behind to haunt the echoes of her bedtime stories and warm legs.

Or maybe he’s just freeloading. 

Cats are like that.
They never die. 

They just relocate.

 

THE FERAL CAT UPSTAIRS: PART II
 The Reckoning (With Fur) 

It happened one morning.
I had just brewed my coffee—black, like my mood—and there it was. A note. Slid under my door in perfect silence. No footprints. No witnesses. Just a scrap of paper, torn from a yellow legal pad, with one word:
“Downstairs.”

My heart stopped. Then it muttered something unkind and started again. I opened the door. Nothing. No rustle. No tail vanishing around the corner. Just that thick morning air that smells like regret and leftover pizza. I stepped outside.

The back stairs. The can was back. Empty. Licked so clean it gleamed like a mirror. Balanced perfectly on the railing. Inside, curled like an omen, was a gray whisker. So it was real. 
He was real. And now… he was watching. Closer.

The next night I heard it. A low, guttural noise. Not quite a meow, not quite a growl. Like the sound of a complaint filed against the universe. I looked up. And there he was.
 A full glimpse, finally. Perched in the attic window like some grimy sphinx. Amber eyes. Ragged ears. The kind of feline you only see in old French detective films and divorce court parking lots.

I raised my hand. He narrowed his eyes. And then, slowly, he raised his paw. It was a greeting. Or a warning.

I don’t know what pact was made that night. Maybe I’m cursed. Maybe I’m protected. But the thudding stopped. The dragging too. In its place? A single sardine, left on my doorstep every Friday since. My landlord still insists there’s no attic. No access. No tenant.  I don’t argue anymore.

I just leave a bowl of cat milk out. And say nothing when my socks go missing. Some spirits need a haunting ground. Some cats just need a home. He has mine. 

For now.