When I count the pens and crayons, a pink marker is missing. Worse, when I go to lock them up in their cupboard, I see my list of Murder suspects lies on top of the boxes of crayons. I didn’t put it there. When I pick it up I see that another name has been added, in sickly pink marker.

Lauren, it reads in her shaky printing. This, of course, has been my fear all along.

I curl up on the couch like a woodlouse; blackness nudges the edge of my vision. My stomach writhes. Surely it all came up, surely it’s finished now. Oh God.

OLIVIA

I know it’s not her time but I’m peering through my peephole anyway. Love is also hope. Gray sky, patchy grass, a triangle of iced sidewalk. It looks pretty cold out there. It’s not so bad being an indoor cat on a day like this.

Behind me the TV plays. Something about dawn streets and walking. Ted leaves it on sometimes to keep me company. Sometimes the set just turns itself on. It’s pretty old. You can learn a lot from the television. I am also glad of it because it drowns out the screeching whine that is my constant companion, now. Eeeeeee, eeeee.

I must have dozed off because I start when a voice speaks to me. At first I think it’s the LORD and I sit up quickly. Yes?

“We must investigate trauma,” the voice says. “Get to its roots. Revisit it, in order to purge it.”

I yawn. This ted is on TV sometimes and he is very boring. I don’t like his eyes. Round, like little blue peepholes. I always feel like I can smell him when he’s on, which makes my tail tingle. He reeks of dust and sour milk. But how could that be? You can’t smell teds on the TV!

Daytime TV is so bad. I think this is a public access channel or something. I wish I could change it.