Furry Friends

Whenever someone asks me about my childhood, I don’t smile and think of good times. I shudder. I think of the only thing from my childhood I remember. Cold, Darkness, Loneliness. Nothing else for 15 years. Cold, Darkness, Loneliness

; these were the names of each of my childhood cats. Cold was a small black girl who always clawed at me when I slept. Darkness was a soft grey boy with piercing yellow eyes that seemed to speak to my lonely childhood self. Loneliness was a shy white girl who hated people. They

made me feel less lonely in a world that was always seemingly out to get me. It was a world in which I had no friends and even when I made ones, they never stuck around long. But my cats were loyal and loved me unconditionally. And so I loved them the very same way.

To honor my cats, I resolved to donate $10 a day to the ASPCA. I had inherited about $50 million from my grandmother, who was the CEO of the company that first mines gold and silver from asteroids.

Perhaps that was why I was even more lonely after my cats were gone. They say the richer you are, the less you know of warmth and goodness. Unless you choose to be obsessed either with love, politics, or work. I wasn't much of a romantic and I washed my hands off politics. That

didn’t leave me with much, apart from my constant fascination, nay obsession, with butter. The oily arts have always been a passion, but who needs to cook when you have a personal chef? Perhaps it was time I revisited my favorite recipes. I opened the fridge and took stock: eggs,

radishes, turnips, spinach, a pound of sharp cheddar, a gallon of orange juice, 3 varieties of peanut butter. The pantry held pasta, beans, sunflower seeds, and Swedish fish. I wouldn’t starve, but I didn’t know what to make for breakfast.

I finally decided to think outside the box and whipped up some pasta with butter and cheese. I was still lonely, though, and the thought returned of my childhood cats. I smiled to myself and opened up a web browser on my phone, then navigated to the local animal shelter’s site.