The Elusive Kibble Beast, Part I

It was the shoes; the damn shoes were everywhere. They perched on windowsills, side tables, even the dining room table. None of them matched – sometimes in the bathroom she would find a tennis shoe that matched the one on the entertainment center two rooms away. More often they were singles. Sometimes there were socks too, and the odd bit of underwear, or a half eaten page from a book – or perhaps it was a bill.

Hunting, always hunting. Elusive beasts, her tiny prey. The dogs didn’t know where to look, so they stayed home, stalking shoes, socks, and the really smelly bits of underwear she was too forgetful to put away, or wash.

The cat was easier…she went out each morning after pawing her mistress awake, and came in each evening to mouse, or bat about the flotsam and jetsam on the floor. Bits of an insole, a stray underwire, the lower corner of the cover of “The Stand”. And always there was the fur, imaginary bunnies to bat about, until they gathered large and intimidating in the corners and lesser-used parts of the space.

It would have been a satisfying life, if not for the constant hunt. The damn little beasties could be elusive, and it was difficult to capture them in large numbers, which was what her beasties required, what she required. So it was out at daylight, and back long after it was done, with a few meager coupons that could be traded for the meat of the elusive kibble beast. She was too old to hunt, really. Now she hunted for the means to buy the product of the hunt.

She was haunted by the shoes, the half-eaten bits of leather that told her she was not bringing home enough. She was haunted by the days she was gone, when she missed the dogs’ aboriginal joy in shredding the bits of civilization she left carelessly sitting about. She would have happily joined them in shredding the navy-blue high heels, but regretted the loss of the insoles in her brown leather clogs.

She would come home, and place the shoes, socks, and still recognizable bits of underwear out of reach of the dogs. It was a habit. She seldom thought to retrieve them to a safe location…after all, they were safe, sitting on the windowsills, fireplace mantel, and yes, even the dining room table. She considered mounting them above the fireplace as trophies, but decided that she could still use the slightly chewed black pumps in her hunt. The rest, like the swatted mosquitos she sometimes forgot to wipe off the cupboards, would serve as a reminder that the hunt must go on.