The cat knew. The cat knew, but didn’t care, and certainly wouldn’t tell a soul. 

But at thirty-four, Hewlett knew his mother’s cat had seen him masturbating plenty.

He’d waited until his mother left for the grocery store, then he went on his mother’s computer and visited his favorite free porn site using the “incognito”  mode on the browser.

It only took a few seconds, and soon a nameless brunette with the massive implants appeared in the video on his screen, bouncing and moaning on a faceless dude’s boner. It was easy for Hewlett to imagine he was the man beneath her. In reality, he was gripping his own pecker instead of the waist of a buxom brunette. He leaned back and closed his eyes, feeling the impending ecstasy.

Hewlett was startled when the white cat leaped and landed with a soft clomp on the desk near the keyboard. He sat up, looking at the cat skeptically.

“Pffft,” Hewlett spat, hoping to shoosh the cat away without pausing his stroking.

Instead of retreating though as he hoped, the cat stepped forward onto the keyboard, somehow managing to hit a combination of keys that turned the computer to full volume. 

“Mmmmmmmm, yeah daddy!” Moaned the sexy brunette loudly. 

Hewlett let go of himself, and reached for the keyboard to turn the volume low again. He didn’t want the nosy neighbor, and his mother’s best friend, Nancy, to hear the porn in her apartment above.

The cat moved forward another step, and managed to trigger a keyboard shortcut that opened a Microsoft Outlook email.

“Goddamn it, Mrs. Claws!” He waved his hand at the cat.

Mrs. Claws stopped and looked at Hewlett inquisitively. She raised a front paw and licked the back of it, looking directly at him.

“Fucking cat.” He muttered, pushing it aside to hit the “Command” and “W” key to close Outlook. But Mrs. Claws set the paw she’d been cleaning down on the keyboard, which somehow pasted the porn website’s address into the body of the open email.

“Shoosh! Go!” Hewlett commanded with a waving gesture.

The cat however, instead of fleeing the desk, pushed her face against the back of his hand affectionately. Hewlett recoiled his hand, and the cat lurched forward. Her tiny paws smashed keys that would reply and send an email containing the “Sexxxy World” website address to his mother’s prayer circle email group.

“Ding!” The computer’s “sent mail” chime sounded.

“Motherfucker!” Hewlett shouted. “Fuck!” 

Mrs. Claws jumped down from the desk, startled by Hewlett’s raised voice. She calmly walked across the room and sat in the doorway, cleaning herself.

I love my room. My bed is wide and comfortable. My sheets are soft and fresh, and I have wonderful pillow options. That makes me giggle. My duvet is clean and warm. Some days I enjoy staying late in my wonderful bed, and looking out the windows at the treetops next to our beautiful house. I watch for birds, or look at the clouds…so comfortable and safe in the home I love. I savor the splendidness that is my room. Everything has its place.

I’ll wander down to the kitchen when I’m ready and smell something delicious baking that I assume my mother is preparing. A quick peek through the oven door confirms my suspicions: cardamom bread. My favorite!

Most days are a routine that I’m honored to go through. I’ll walk through the backyard and look at the garden if weather permits, or some days I’ll sit in my favorite rocking chair and gaze out the window at the neighborhood children playing, or watch the birds at my feeders. Some days I’ll help my mother in the kitchen, or do some laundry in the basin in the basement. 

I didn’t go to school today. I can’t remember the last time I did. I can’t remember the last time I left our yard. It didn’t matter. I was sick. I remember being in my bed and so weak I couldn’t get out of bed. Today I was feeling better. 

The bookshelf in my living room is full of my dogeared favorites; many classics, a few cheap paperback romances, some old reference and text books. Today though, I notice many are missing. The old, inherited classics are there and accounted for, but all of my paperbacks now sit in a box near the door. Who could have done this? I kick the box softly in disgust and set off to find the culprit. 

The second floor bathroom door is closed, so I assume mother is on the other side, “Mother? Are you in there? Did you box up my books?” The bathroom door flew open and I’m hit with a cool gust of wind. I speculate that someone must have left the window open, and my mother is clearly not in the bathroom. I walk to peek out of the bathroom window into the backyard below, but curiously, it’s closed. Through the glass I spot my mother, kneeling down near a row of plants in the garden. I temporarily forget about the breeze that had slapped me moments ago, as I swiftly head down the stairs to talk to her outside.

“Mother!” I call, walking towards her. She looks in my direction, smiles and waves me closer.

“What is it, dear?” She asked sweetly.

“My books?  Many are boxed up and on the floor; were you planning on getting rid of them?” I was a little upset and failing miserably at hiding my emotional state.

“Prudence, I never touched your books. I did no such thing!” She says back, surprised.

“Well, someone put my paperbacks in a box. Who would have done that?”

She stops weeding and rises to her feet, rubbing the dirt from her gloves. “That is peculiar.” She says, sounding concerned. “But I assure you, I haven’t touched your books.”

She mutters something, argues with herself a moment, and leads the way into the house, as though she will prove me mistaken.

As we enter the living room, we gasp in unison. Boxes now cover a larger area in the room. I look into one that is not yet taped closed, and it contains my rock collection and some random kitchen utensils. Everything is out of the place it belongs.

“What has…” my voice trails off. Mother is gone, and I’m alone in the room now, apart from dozens of boxes containing our things. I shove at a large box, but it is so heavy, it doesn’t budge. I see a small box on the edge of a table containing our bath towels, and push it to the floor. The box lands with a soft thud and the contents spill on the floor.

Who would do this? Father will be angry when he returns home from work. Who is the stranger in our beautiful home moving our things? My things. I hear a clatter in the kitchen and head to see what’s happening.

My mother is upset. She’s pulling drawers out of the cabinets and the contents are spilling on the floor. The bread has been pulled from the oven, and is sitting on the cutting board. Someone has eaten several slices. Then it hits me again; a gust of cold wind, and then everything goes black.

I wake up the next day in my bed. It is morning. I’m alone. I’m wearing my same clothes; a white dress with tiny pink roses on it that my mother had sewn for me months ago. Then I see her. A young girl, about my age. She’s sitting on the floor in my room, playing with some toys I don’t recognize.

“Who are you?” I ask her sharply.

She doesn’t react. 

I ask again, now sitting up in my bed. Louder.

Nothing.

I rise from the bed and walk across the room to where she’s seated and grab her shoulder. She jerks, startled. “Daddy!” She shrieks loudly, and runs from the room.

I follow her down the stairs. The living room is arranged differently. No. The furniture is all different. I look at the bookshelves and there are my some of my books, and many new ones. I’m confused. I’m scared. I’m sad. I start to panic.

I tear through the house looking for Mother or Father, but they are nowhere to be found. Each room I searched had been tampered with; our things pushed off to one side. Boxes strewn everywhere. 

And then it hits me. Another blast of cold air runs through me and I remember. I’m not a child. My parents have been dead for many years. Do I have Alzheimer’s? What’s wrong with me?

I must have amnesia of some kind. I feel faint and sick to my stomach thinking that I have Alzhemer’s disease. Maybe it’s a fever. I remember being sick in my bed…and being older. The memories hit me like tiny splashes of cold water. My children, adults now. My two husbands…dead and gone, respectively.

Still these boxes everywhere! If this is a fever causing me to hallucinate, I should just go back to my room. That little girl is back. Who is she? She ignores me, as I stand in the doorway.

“Get out.” I say, as dismissively as I can muster, given my weakened state. I need to lay down in my bed. The child ignores me. She continues to flit around the room, and this annoys me. 

“Get out!” I demand. 

She stops twirling and freezes, slowly raising her head to look at me. It’s like she doesn’t see me. Is she blind? Why is she here in my room?

“My room.” She says flatly. 

Imagine! The nerve of this child. 

“Get! Out!” I demand.

“No, my room!”

I just want to lay on my bed. I love my bed. Tomorrow I will deal with all these boxes and this brat. I just need to rest and regain my strength and get over this feeling.

“Yeah! …Yeah!” the man said loudly into his phone. The rest of us sat quietly at the gate waiting for the plane to arrive, but not this asshole. A few passengers glanced up at him, then returned to their screens or books.

“Yeah….I’ll let you go now and get back to your gyro…or jy-ro…whatever they call them!” He burst into a loud laugh at his own stupid joke. What a moron. “Yeah, yeah…the lamb thing,” followed by more obnoxious, laughter so hard it had to be phony, then he ended the call.

The entire time he was talking, he paced back and forth in front of the large window overlooking the tarmack like a caged tiger. Sit down you asshole, and shut the fuck up. I thought to myself, and felt confident the rest of my fellow travelers within earshot were thinking the same thing. What a self-important prick. We’re all here — all subjected to your inane, loud conversation.

The man caught his own reflection in the sunny window and smoothed his hair with his free hand and sucked his teeth, then walked away and disappeared from sight down the concourse.

Almost instantly, you could feel the attention of the travelers seated in Gate C-2 shift to a young blonde woman in a baseball cap whose phone conversation now pierced the quiet like a dentist drill. “Look, I pay it off every single month…$14.50-something. I’ve been on the phone with the last guy for an hour. Here…” she said, pulling some folded paper from her bag. “It’s $14.53 and the charge was just Friday. I know! I need a receipt emailed to me!” Her voice rose in pitch and agitation.

$14 dollars. Who cares enough about 14 measly dollars to sit on the phone for an hour bitching? Yeah, she had a baseball cap on, but her carry-on luggage was Gucci and I recognized the Channel logo on her shoes. 

I thought about how much my own time was worth: how much money would drive me to make an hour-plus phone call like her? I settled on $100: I wouldn’t call and raise a fuss for a charge less than $100 — that was my cut-off point. I make about that an hour at work, so I know my time has value. I would guess her time didn’t, and the gaudy display of designer clothes and accessories was provided by her “daddy”. 

She held her phone out  in front of her face and gave a frustrated growl while stabbing the screen, her long painted nails clicking frantically.  

So much drama over 14 bucks. Bet she’s a treat to live with.

I’m not usually this irritable. But my feet were throbbing, my lower back ached…the week of traveling I was returning from had been amazing, but now I just wanted to be home. 

Morons like this just acted like this was their home and they could just behave without regard for those around them. 

The loud phone talkers. 

The coughers. 

The grinning-like-idiots parents, letting their toddler run free. Expecting everyone to just smile and see their ugly baby is as precious as they do.

The mouth breathers.

The talking-while-eating girl.

The socks with Crocs old man.

The woman in dress pants and sneakers.

The sloppy, dumpy woman in a stretched-out tee and fleece pajama pants.

When did this happen to us, as a country? Were we always this way and until now was I one of the unaware slobs, so consumed in my own world, my slovenly offenses bled out on others?