$2
by Valerie Biles

My kitten vanished without reason like a magic trick gone wrong. Not a trace of her existed. The only feline I knew had multiple folds in its neck and a stomach like a swollen water balloon, which scraped against the carpet if I tried to pet it. While the beast slept in the light of hypnotizing sunrays, it seemed harmless. When awakened, however, it resumed its position as the hairball-breathing dragon.

I despised that animal and out of pure desperation I did what I did best—convince.

I tried telling the young boy next door that for a mere $2 he could purchase a mouse-trapping cat that could even manage to catch frogs on occasion. He said he didn’t have that kind of money. I was stuck with her. She wouldn’t go outside and run away; she sat in the window and gazed at the outside world, reclined like a menacing Buddha waiting for its next meal of chicken-flavored morsels to arrive on a tiny golden platter.

I wish I had been more careful or had chosen a better kitten, one that would pay attention to me rather than being absorbed into itself like an unwilling oyster. In the grocery store the golden brown Twinkies, packaged in attractive clear wrappers, always possessed an alluring affect. I was never too fond of the taste, but they seemed so soft and simplistic.

I wish my kitten had been more like a sugar cube, completely sweet but with a little edge.