For the Love of the Game

I was a warm, toasty cinnamon roll. Swaddled in a fluffy comforter, my body was cradled by the supportive mattress, heavy head sunk deep into the pile of soft pillows behind it. My eyes slowly and reluctantly opened to greet the day as morning light filtered through the pink gauzy curtains. In the crack between the two fabric panels, a lively beam of sunshine shoved it’s way past, happy little dust motes floating through its wake.

It was a perfectly lovely way to start my Saturday. Luxuriating in the serenity of the morning, I let my eyes fall closed again, breathing in long and deep breaths of the cool air, taking a moment to just indulge in a moment of mindfulness.

“Ooof!”

My eyes flew open to see the furry delinquent staring down at me. Within Harley’s baby blue irises, his normally tightly slitted pupils were wide with excitement. The grunt of surprise had escaped my lips when his two front paws had hit my chest, the weight behind them pressing into my flesh, followed immediately by the soft thud of something being dropped near those tiny little feet.

“Good morning, baby. What did you bring me today, hm?” This was a common routine for Harley. He had a talent for recognizing the sounds of my body shifting in the bed as I awoke, and would frequently respond by jumping up with a crinkly ball, a feathered stuffy, a plastic spring, or any other of the overabundance of cat toys that filled my apartment. I would grab it, toss it across my bedroom, attempting to aim it out the door and into the hallway. Then Harley would chase down the toy, recover it, and bring it back to me in bed. Because apparently the good people at the animal shelter neglected to inform me that my cat was part Labrador Retriever.

Shifting a bit, I looked down at my chest to see what he had gifted me.

It was not a crinkly ball. Or a feathered stuffy. Or a plastic spring.

On my chest, just inches from my face, lie the rigid corpse of a green anole, colloquially referred to as a common lizard. They are a familiar sight in the southeast region of the United States, and occasionally they manage to find themselves inside of people’s homes. Apparently at some point in the wee hours of the morning, this little dude had made his way into mine… much to his own peril, it would seem.

“Oh come on, Harley! Seriously, dude?!” Quickly sitting up in the bed and watching the dead lizard tumble off of my chest and onto the sheets, I looked to my furry son expectantly for an answer.

The cat just peered back at me with the round, eager eyes, his head tilting to the side inquisitively. Harley was primed and ready. He had fulfilled his part of the game, and it was my turn. Now this little fucking psycho expected me to toss a the body of goddamn dead lizard across the room and out into the hallway for him to chase down.

In that moment, I was reminded of a television program that I’d watched probably a decade prior. It was a show counting down the “Top Ten Most Deadliest Cats.” After they covered the second deadliest, I was flummoxed. They had already discussed all the biggest contenders: tigers, lions, panthers, jaguars, etc. I wracked my brain, trying to think of what was left. Well, the program returned from commercial break, and declared that the number one most deadliest cat in the world… is the housecat. Wait, what?

They had come to this conclusion based on the following logic: Cats in the wild, big and small, all hunt and kill out of necessity. They kill for food, for survival. Housecats, however? All their basic needs are already met by their human slaves. When a housecat kills, he kills for fun. For primal enjoyment. Simply for the love of the game.

I looked at Harley’s sweet, precious, stupid little face and just laughed. But as I reached for the lizard’s corpse to carry it to a watery grave with a flush down the toilet, I noticed something odd. “Harley…” I asked the fluffy blue-pointed feline. “Where is his tail?”

Harley, of course, just stared back at me, his one brain cell working overtime. I gingerly picked up the tailless husk of the foolish lizard as I climbed out of bed. That’s when I nearly tripped over another wild beastie.

In the middle of the bedroom floor rolled my other cat, Butters. All sixteen pounds of him kicked and thrashed violently as he rocked side-to-side on his back. I froze in place, lizard corpse in my hand, shock painting my face. What in the world…?

Then the orange and white cat leapt to his feet, his back to me, and shook his head wildly, one front paw batting at his face. “Butters!” I blurted out. He stopped, and turned his sweet, fuzzy little face to look over his shoulder at me. As he did, his mouth opened and something long and green and slender hit the carpet.

Welp. Found the tail.

I imagine that must have been Butters’ half of the morbid prize. They had hunted their lizard prey as a team, with lethal efficiency. The poor scaly bastard never stood a chance.

Damn. The world’s deadliest cats indeed.