Screaming, Taylor’s cat awoke its narcoleptic owner, alerting her to a shadow outside their apartment’s terrace window, which then exploded as the shadow made his entrance, shards spitting in every direction.
Taylor, 31 years old and a carpenter, was still trying to clock into reality, her amygdala ahead of her slumbering body. The cat looked up at its heap of mumbling owner, emerging from the covers. And then it looked at the large broad man, ransacking drawers and shelves, with great technique, by the way. Not a single drawer jammed and he had clearly developed a method to navigate his way around a bedroom. Efficient, impressive even, thought the cat.
With a suggestion of adrenaline in her system, Taylor released a confused and offended “Heyyyyyehhh..!” drawn out, on a descending pitch. The shadow paid no mind – he was a professional; head down, flashlight by his temple, hunting…
Then WHAM! The cat had mounted the shelf the shadow was nearing, and propelled itself at the villain’s head, blasting the torch into straight into his temple. Having caught up with her amygdala, Taylor’s average female body flapped out of bed. She watched as her cat flew at the shadow’s head in slow motion. Adrenaline kicked in, Taylor acted on impulse and pounced upon the villain. Down to the ground he plummeted, knocking his brow on a mid century style sideboard on his descent, the cat hissing down at him from its new perch on said sideboard. Sprawled out on, his back having nothing but fists in her carpenter hands, Taylor yolked him right round his ear, then the other, then the back of his head, and then lifted his head to smash it on the reclaimed wood parquet flooring. The bash on the sideboard, noted the cat, had already knocked the man out, but the cat thought it better to not bring that up just then, and jumped down from its perch and investigated the smells of the intruder.
The torch had rolled a few feet away. Taylor picked it up , keeping her eyes on the villain and shone it at his body. Breathing and bloody around the face. Huge, yet childlike in his concussion induced slumber, almost sweet, somebody’s little boy. The cat had claimed his back as its territory, sniffing the head area, before settling on his spine as though it were a country garden wall. Taylor’s own silky pink and blue floral pyjama set was splattered with a little blood. Normally, she would be upset about blood stains, but in that moment her mind, returning to sleep, thought the red splodges could pass as roses.
Taylor had to do something before succumbing to sleep. She knew this. When the tall broad man woke up he would surely kill her. Considering what to do, she perched on the bed. Then, she went to the kitchen, called the police, found zip ties in her makeshift woodshop, tied the intruder’s hands and feet together, and then went back to bed…only she hadn’t. She was still on her bed – the sardonic siren song of her narcolepsy too great. Now there were two sprawled slumbering bodies in the room, the shadowy man down on the floor, and Taylor up on bed, dressed in sage and off-white waffle textured sheets.
The cat looked down at the man, and then up at its owner, observing her from the man’s back, tilting its head from left to right.