Bad Luck

Cat and Mouse

                                                Chapter 6

                                                Cat & Mouse

"Seriously, how are you doing this?" I asked, stupefied.

It was the fourth time I had tossed Lucky out of my basement, yet, there he was, sitting in the middle of my living room and looking at me like I was the insane one. I didn't have the faintest idea how he kept coming back inside.

And why was he even doing this? Why did he keep coming back? Hasn't he made perfectly clear that he hated me? Now that he was healed and free to go as he pleased, he decided he was pleased to follow me around.

I think he was doing it just to piss me off.

The annoying little bugger.

I first thought about taking him to an animal shelter so that someone could adopt and take care of him, but I made the mistake of saying that out loud with him close by. It had been impossible to go near him after that. He went berserk every time I tried to pick him up to put him in his carrier. After the third violent attack, I gave up on that plan.

Black cats are really hard to get adopted anyway, thanks to human prejudice and stupid superstition. I knew he would have a hard time getting picked.

I decided to call Marie's friends then, to see if any of them would be interested in a new pet. None of them called back and I couldn't bother Frankie again with this, having made her already adopt two dogs that I had rescued from the streets. So, the only option left was to release him into the wild, since he was such a free spirit who could not be tamed.

The idea of tossing an animal onto the streets made me reluctant, but maybe it was the best thing to do for him. But when I tried to set him free, he wouldn't go away. As soon as he realized that following me around got me aggravated, he made it his life's mission to do exactly that. He was living to antagonize me.

If I wanted him in a cage, he made sure he was out of the cage. If I wanted him close by, he did everything he possibly could to get away from me. Now that I wanted him gone, he stayed glued to me like my frigging shadow.

I had put him outside on the sidewalk three times already and he kept finding a way to come back into the basement, strolling inside as if he owned the damn place.

He was so bloody infuriating, I swear!

"I mean it, Lucky. The door is locked. All the windows are closed. How in the hell are you coming inside?" I asked again.

"Mrrooow?" He blinked innocently back at me from his royal spot on my carpet.

"Don't give me that baffled look and the 'don't know what you're talking about'! You know exactly what I'm talking about." I snapped at him with both hands on my hips while tapping my foot impatiently on the floor as I waited for his explanation.

He stared at me for a couple of seconds before licking his nose, lying down, and getting all comfortable on the carpet, as if to say, "Well, there's no talking to you when you're acting crazy, so I'm just gonna not".

So. Bloody. Irritating. I'm telling ya!

"No, no, no! You can't lay in there. And you can't stay either. I'm not taking you in, Lucky! I have a 'no pets-adoption policy' here." I wailed at him. "Stop coming back. I told you, you're free to go now! It's time for you to go live your life. This is the last time I'm putting you out, you hear?"