There’s a pile of bloody bones before me on the tiles. They’re picked clean. I’m full of night meat. I wonder what kind of animal it was. Maybe that mouse who’s always singing in the kitchen walls. Or it could be a squirrel. There’s a nest in the attic. Sometimes I hear them chittering, and running across the beams. I think they’re squirrels, but they could be ghosts. I don’t go into the attic. There are no windows there and I only like rooms with windows. Night-time doesn’t care about things like that.

Thinking about the ghosts upsets me and makes me feel weird. The mess before me doesn’t look like mouse remains anymore. It looks like the bones of a small human hand.

Something crawls across the ceiling above. It sounds way too heavy to be a squirrel. I race downstairs as fast as I can and I put myself into my nice warm crate.

Ted doesn’t know about Night-time—I mean, he can’t tell the difference between us. I obviously can’t explain it to him, there’s a language barrier. And what would I say? Night-time is part of me; we are two natures that share a body. I guess it’s a cat thing.

The night stretches ahead, and I am still hungry.

Is it my time, again?

It is your time.

Night-time comes forth once more, and his stride is full of joy.

TED

The blond woman said yes. I’m surprised. You’d think she’d be more careful. But people are trusting, I guess. We wrote each other all night. It’s so good to meet someone who loves the ocean as much as I do, she writes. I might not have been completely honest about that but I’ll explain when we meet.

But when and where do we meet? What do I wear? Will she actually show up? The questions come and suddenly everything is terrible. I look down at my clothes. My shirt is really old. It’s from the auto shop where I used to work. The burgundy color has faded almost to pink, the cotton is soft and thin as paper in places. And of course, it has my name across the pocket. This is handy in case I forget, ha, ha. But I don’t think a woman would like it. My jeans are gray with age except where they are spattered with dark splashes of something, ketchup, I guess. There are holes in both knees but it doesn’t look cool. Everything is so faded. I want to be colorful, like my nice bright orange rug.

The woman is making me feel terrible, with her blue eyes and blond hair. How can she put me through this? Why did she pick me to talk to, to meet? I can already imagine her expression when she sees me. She’ll probably just turn around and leave.