Category: The Old Woman with No Cat
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02.11 The Old Woman With No Cat

The Old Woman, the Cat, and the Apple Tree of Chaos(Old Fashioned Chaos) The apple tree,drunk on starlight and spite,heaves its roots like Cetus, a sea serpent of soil— thunk against the fence,crack through the patio, its fruit rolling into the neighbour’s gardenlike tiny, rosy planetsescaping orbit. The cat(still not hers, never hers)watches from the…
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The Old Woman With No Cat

The Old Woman Considers Ownership The Old Woman watches the cat— that cat, the one who pacesher kitchen like a landlordcollecting rent in broken sleepand half-remembered dreams — and she says, soft as dust:“Perhaps you are mine,in the way the wind owns the sigh,or the crow owns that stolen spoonhe buried near the mugwort.” The…
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The Old Woman With No Cat

The Cat’s Singing Lessons (An Ode to Avian-Aided Ambition) The robin starts with scales,light as dandelion fluff —“Try trilling deeper,” she chirps.“Like you mean it.Like you own the fence.And the worm beneath it.” The cat responds in C major,with a hint of threat:Mee-YOWL-ooooww… Is that art or a cry for help?The line is thin. The…
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The Old Woman With No Cat

How to Lick Stamps Properly (An Old Woman’s Bedtime Lesson for her granddaughter) TO BEGIN: the old woman hands her granddaughteran envelope,its corner waiting for a stamplike a tiny, thirsty tongue. “watch closely,” she says,and licks the glue—not too much (that’s obedience),not too little (that’s doubt),but just enoughto make the King’s profilewink. the crow caws…
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21 July: The Old Woman With No Cat

The Old Woman and Schrödinger’s Cat — The Collapse (part 3) The old woman wakes to find the box again — open, empty, and whispering like a kettle just before the scream. Inside, a note — written in her own precise hand, but the ink smells of ozone and forgotten rain: “Observation completes the curse…
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19 July: The Old Woman With No Cat (tweaked)

From the Old Woman’s Journal: The Cat Gets Dramatic. Again. 10:32 AM — Found the not-my-cat in the coal bin again this morning, covered in soot and undeserved gravitas — “researching ancestral hardship” and “honouring the noble struggles of the Welsh proletariat,” it claims. Impressive rhetoric for something that still chases string and shadows. I…
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The Old Woman With No Cat

A Trilogy of Feline Digital Disasters (Because cats—love chaos) I. TUTORIAL HELLScene: The cat is perched in front of a laptop, watching “Crunchy Tuna Unboxing” videos. CAT (squinting) “This is research.”OLD WOMAN “It’s been six hours.”CAT “Silence, woman. I’m cultivating my aesthetic.” (Off-screen, the crow livestreams the whole affair.) CROW (voiceover)“Day 1: ‘Artist’ has forgotten…
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The Old Woman With No Cat

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…
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1 July: The Old Woman With No Cat

The Cat Creates a YouTube Account(a masterclass in digital anonymity) The cat, draped across the old woman’s keyboard in repose,begins typing.Slowly.Deliberately.With one claw. First: the username.sardinesupremacist — taken. Probably by the crow.knittingwithclaws — too obvious.notacattrustme — suspiciously defensive.fibreartistformerlyknownascat — perfect. The drama, the mystery, the disdain. Next: the password.ilovefish123! — hacked in two seconds. Amateur…
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25 June: The Old Woman With No Cat
The Old Woman’s Unwritten Rules – Vol. IV I. Let the rain borrow your porch,but never your umbrella.Some things are meant to bejust damp enoughto remember they’re alive. II. If a teacup cracks,don’t mourn the china.Ask what it’s trying to say.Most breaks are justunfinished sentences. (Exception: when the cat “accidentally” knocks it over. That’s pure…