My Mother, the Wretch (Flash Fiction)

Mother has forsaken me. She traipses about the apartment, tending to her petty frivolities as if my well of sustenance has not run dry.

“Charlie, you’re being ridiculous,” she scolds. “There's plenty around the edges. You're just mad ‘cause you can see the bottom of the bowl.”

Such lies are an insidious form of treachery. She knows my bowl is barren, and yet she does nothing to rectify the situation. Monstrous.

I bristle as I stalk to my perch. “My name is Charlotte, Mother. Not ‘ChArLiE’.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she smirks as she slides on her glasses. “Meow to you, too.”

“Mother! Mother, why?” I cry as I search for the kibble she swears is in there.

She scoops me. I hiss. I am returned to the carpet.

“What am I going to do with you?” She shakes her head.

“Feed me!” I wail.

“Hmm,” she muses. “Do you want a treat?”

A treat?! Mother has not forsaken me after all.

My chest rumbles with satisfaction, and it deepens as she scratches behind my ears.

“Oh, Mother,” I purr. “How merciful you are.”

She brings the tube to my face. I lap at it gratefully. The taste is nothing short of euphoric.

“Mother, Mother, you do love me! I knew you would feed me eventually. And this treat! Such a delicacy!”

“Alright, Charlie,” she soothes, lowering me back to the ground. “Are you gonna be a good girl and play nice?”

“Mother! Yes Mother! Of course I will!” I purr as I weave between her ankles.

“Good,” she smiles, stepping over me and crossing to the portal through which she sometimes leaves to hunt.

At least, I assume that’s what she does all day. The frustrated scowl that often adorns her face when she returns in the evenings can hardly be indicative of any other endeavor. It must be going poorly, though. Her blouse is almost always blood-free.

A metallic smell twitches at my whiskers as she opens the door. A man. Not of this realm. Alien.

Unacceptable.

I spring forward with a mighty hiss, my duty to Mother knowing no bounds.

My fangs gleam, his bare ankles within paw’s reach, but just as I pounce—

“Bad kitty!” Mother's hands find me once more, and I am airborne.

I thrash and hiss as she carries me through the nether portal and into the domain of porcelain, where the forbidden fountain beckons. Or where it would, if the lid weren't closed.

Click.

She shuts the door behind me, dooming me to a sentence of indeterminate length in this frigid, fluorescent wasteland. The most devastating part? It smells like toots in here.

“Sorry about that, babe. I put Charlie in bathroom jail. Now…where were we?”

I scream at the sounds that come through the door. He is murdering her, I know it! And I am powerless to save her.

“Mother, Mother no! I cannot lose you!”

What feels like hours pass as I curl up on the plush, green bath mat. It is not so bad here. I have food. And my litter box. And a window.

But I do not have Mother. And without her, do I have anything at all?

The portal reopens with a creak, and I spring to my feet, prepared for a fight to the death with whoever this “Steve” is.

But there is no Steve. There is only…

“...Mother?”