[ IP ] The Life and Times of Dewey the Cat

`` Honestly,'' Dewey sniffed from his position atop my china cabinet. His green eyes glared down at me like spook-lights. ``'Human enough'? What a thing to memorialize me by. Why, I've never been so insulted in all my nine lives.'' 
 
 `` Dewey?'' I said, not believing my rheumy eyes. I held my arms up to him and cooed between my lips. `` Dewey. Oh my boy. You came back to me.'' 
 
 `` You've known plenty of humans,'' Dewey said, and leaped from the cabinet and stalked across my dinner table, tail held erect in the air, ignoring my arms. `` I've known plenty of humans. Your husband. Your two daughters,'' he said, and bristled. `` Nasty little things, children. Could n't keep their hands to themselves. Not to mention all those humans down at the banks, those human lawyers, all of them with their glinting spectacles and eager grasping hands. And did any one of those humans give you half the comfort and succor that I did?'' 
 
 `` Oh Dewey,'' I said, and blinked back tears. I tried to wheel my chair around to face him, but he kept his sleek body moving'round the room. `` I did n't mean anything by it, Dewey. You ought ought to know that by now, do n't you?'' 
 
 `` Did your husband curl up with you by the fire?'' Dewey said, his claws clacking on the hardwood floor. `` Or did he rut atop you and roll off, asleep? Did either of your two daughters ever think to visit, to spend the lonely nights with you? When they saw you, did they well their happiness up in their throats and purr, or did they just wheedle you for more money, eager for you to pass on already?'' His voice was a snarl like something in the jungles of Africa, the moment before it pounced. 
 
 `` Dewey,'' I said, my voice quavering, the tears rolling down my ruined cheeks. `` I buried you, Dewey. And I - I needed to believe in something, did n't I, Dewey? Do n't be cruel to me now, Dewey. I need you. I've always needed you.'' 
 
 `` Well, I'm'only a cat,' ai n't I?'' Dewey said and showed his fangs, and curled his paw along the floor as if he was playing with a mouse. `` Cruelty's in my nature. Too bad I could n't be'human enough' for you.'' 
 
 `` Oh Dewey,'' I said, and buried my face in my hands, squeezing my eyes shut and letting the tears flow. `` What else did you want from me, Dewey? You wanted me to renounce my nature? Give up hope in the fellowship of man?'' I was so cold, and so unsteady, the tremble cutting right through my bones. `` Then I failed you, Dewey. Leave me again like you left me before.'' I hugged my arms and kept my eyes shut, expecting to open them again and see Dewey gone. `` You were only a cat, Dewey. That's all you were. And you meant the damn world to me.'' 
 
 I shuddered there in the empty room, listening to the silence, the still and warmthless air that had filled the house ever since Dewey had passed. And then there was a familiar weight thrown into my lap, and Dewey's warm body pressing up against me. 
 
 `` Well then,'' he muttered, curling up and closing his eyes, as I stroked a disbelieving hand across his spine. `` It's all right, then. I'll forgive you.''
