It's Still Life

The Old Woman and Pandora’s Cat (part 1)

An ancient leather-bound box arrives — Pandora’s scrawled across the lid in ink.

Inside: a tiny meow. Whiskers twitch, a kitten, ink-black, curled around hope as if a secret, and the old woman laughs, lifts it — all warm, trembling — and then the hissing begins.

From the box’s depths, sounds are breeding: claws on glass, a yowl like a siren, the wet thump of something falling … the kitten’s eyes flash — a bit too knowing.

The old woman slams the lid closed … silence.

That night, she hears scratching, but not at the door — it’s coming from inside the walls.

The Old Woman and Schrödinger’s Cat (part 2)

But the thing in the walls grows louder.

One night, resigned, the old woman opens the bedroom window and calls, “Fine. You win.”

A pause — silence — a thud, and a purr. The shadow slinks in slow as a long Tennessee vowel, eyes moon-bright, and it drops a gift at the old woman’s feet: a dead mouse; a lock of her own white hair, and a single, grinning tooth from unwise cross-breeding.

She sighs, and scratched its ears, “You’re trouble.”

The cat blinks, smug.