[ WP ] Something invisible lives in your home . You try to expose it without letting it know that you 're aware of its presence .

At exactly 3:32 PM on a regular old Tuesday in a regular old house on a regular old street, there was a thud that broke the boring and empty silence. This alarming sound was promptly proceeded by a series of scampering thuds, which to Albert Tinney sounded suspiciously like the footfalls of children. *Odd*, Albert thought, *I don ’ t have any children*. 
 
 With a sigh and a grumble, Albert threw off his bedsheet, swung his feet out of bed and toed them into his bunny slippers. *Better not be that damned cat again*, Albert continued thinking, *or I ’ ll give it the boot. I don ’ t care what Miss Alice says*. 
 
 Miss Alice was Alice Wendy, Albert ’ s neighbor and she lived with a number of cats. One cat in particular did not fancy its owner much and would continually try to break out of her house and into his. It wasn ’ t that they liked each other very much, the cat and Albert, but they did have one thing very much in common: they loved nothing more than the quiet of solitude. 
 
 On many an afternoon, Al would come downstairs for a glass of milk only to find the cat curled up in the window nook above the front door. When the realtor had sold him this particular condo, he had been in quite a hurry and hadn ’ t been listening when the realtor had chimed in about the previous owner ’ s having had a pet cat — one which loved to sit and bask in the sun in its favorite spot. 
 
 The trouble was, as Al soon found out, there was no cat to be found. He looked in the usual spots, upstairs and down, the beast would choose to laze around, but came up empty. *One day, I ’ m going to find out how that beast finds its way in and that ’ ll be the end of that*, he thought, nodding assuredly to himself. 
 
 Then he heard it again, and froze where he stood. *Thump-thump-thump* His eyes narrowed as he climbed the stairs toward the sound. *Got you now, beastie, * he thought, smiling to himself. At the top of the stairs, he grabbed the empty laundry basket he kept near the linen cupboard. 
 
 *Thump-thump-thump-thump* 
 
 It was in the guest room. Of that, he was sure. On feet whisper-quiet in their tread, he crept toward the guest room door which was cracked open. Albert always kept the doors in his house closed. He found silence was easier to maintain this way. A door opened a crack should have signaled to him that something else might have been going on, because as any human with half a brain knows, only the smartest of cats know how to turn a door knob. If only Albert had been blessed with half the wit of a normal man. 
 
 He held the laundry basket upside-down in one hand, ready to plop it down on an unwelcomed feline visitor, and reached for the door with the other. Not wanting to spend a beautifully boring afternoon trapsing through his house chasing after some beast, Albert wanted to get this over with nice and quick. 
 
 As he reached for the door, ready to whip it open, he heard the thumps again — this time heading toward the door and he nimbly backed out of the way, careful not to bump anything and clamped his hand over his mouth as *something* — though he wasn ’ t sure what — whipped open the door and thudded its way down the hall toward his bedroom. 
 
 The only trouble was that the thing wasn ’ t a *thing* at all. In fact, there didn ’ t seem to be anything there. Albert would have thought himself imagining all this nonsense if only there weren ’ t the little footprints in the dust. He noticed them now. They were partially obscured by the sweeping steps of his bunny slippers, but he was grateful now for the fact that he only dusted on odd Sundays. 
 
 Oddly, the footsteps led into three rooms now and seemed to begin in the middle of the hallway as if out of no where. Albert frowned down at the footprints but decided not to make his brain hurt with plausibilities. Instead, he decided he should go in after it and try to catch it. He stood listening for a moment and heard the quick little steps of the thing in his room. Careful to close the guestroom door, he padded his way toward his bedroom door which also now stood ajar. 
 
 Albert pushed gently on the door and it swung soundlessly open. Looking around, he saw nothing but remembered the beastie was invisible — at least for the moment — and thought to look down at its tracks. He followed them, his laundry basket in tow, one at a time until he came to the edge of his bed where they seemed to disappear underneath. 
 
 As he was about to lean down to get a better look at things under the bed, a light bulb went off. *Best not expose my face. I ’ ll catch the bugger when it saunters out, * he thought and smirked to himself. He climbed up on the bed, turned around and raised the basket above his head, ready to pounce the moment the thing dared make a rush for the door. 
 
 Of course, when he ’ d climbed up on the bed, it hadn ’ t registered that he had one too many pillows underneath his sheets. Poised for attack, back turned to the head of the bed, Albert Tinney had no idea what vile creature was hidden under the sheets, inadvertantly pretending to be something soft and comforting. 
 
 Though his noodley arms began to tire under the weight of the empty laundry vessel, Albert stuck his tongue out in determination. *I ’ ll catch the furball, invisible or not*, he thought. 
 
 Behind him, a pillow that wasn ’ t a pillow uncovered itself and seemed to take notice of the silly man with wobbly arms holding a basket over his head. Soundlessly it crept toward him and long invisible claws that extended out of two gnarled invisible feet. A hideous invisible grin spread across a monstrous invisible face. The tiny monster poised itself to strike. 
 
 It was just then, at 3:47 PM on that same very boring Tuesday afternoon, that Albert Tinney caught some movement in the corner of his right eye and before he had the chance to react, there was a hiss, a snarl, a chuff, a yowl, a wet crunch followed by a wet, fading hiss. By this time, Albert — in all his bravado — had pulled the basket down over his head, had closed his eyes tight and found himself trembling. 
 
 Albert waited a full minute for his cowardice to retreat and his bravery to return. He opened one eye, and slowly turned around, using the laundry basket as both a shield and scope for what grisly scene lay in waiting. 
 
 Instead, Al found that damned cat inexplicably sitting about a foot in the air above his bed, licking its paws and — of all things to be doing at a time like this — purring. 
 
 At roughly 4:22 PM that same day, Albert had wrapped the invisible, sticky, wet thing in a garbage bag, firmly tied a knot and had deposited into the wastebin in his side yard. 
 
 His return upstairs was apprehensive and filled with listening pauses and furtive glances. A most unpleasant encounter behind him, he still had the business of attending to his feline foe and he never enjoyed touching the filthy cat. Then a thought crossed his mind, much later than it would have crossed another person ’ s, and the thought was such: *that stupid cat just saved my life. * 
 
 He reached the top of the stairs at 4:25 PM and by 4:35 PM, he had reached out to pet the cat, found that it didn ’ t find him repulsive, oddly enough, and even odder still was the *he* didn ’ t find *it* repulsive either. Something had indeed changed. 
 
 By 5:00 PM, Albert had discovered that he and his new companion could share the dull, empty, quiet solitude together. Neither of them had to say a word — not that the cat could no matter how hard his kitty mouth tried to anyway — and they liked it that way. By 5:32 PM, Al had fallen fast asleep in his bed with his feline friend perched atop his sleeping breast, rising and falling with each breath. 
 
 For Al and Marbles the Cat, all was right in the world and they both felt quite happy in this new arrangement. Life, it seemed, would go on with one less conflict ruining the blissful silence. 
 
 And neither of them — least of both, Albert — gave any thought to where the invisible thing had come from ( which was the attic ), why it had come ( which was for something it had lost ) and whether it had any family ( it did ). 

