Micia Pusskins moved in to number sixty at the same time as the owner of the flat. He found her crying on his doorstep the first morning he woke up there and she had been with him ever since. Cats somehow sense who will look after them well and it seemed that she’d made a wise choice. After all, the two of them had a great deal in common – both being creatures of habit, who disliked any form of change to their well-established routines.
Every night, for example, Micia would wait until her master had settled down in bed, then jump up and deposit herself on his stomach to join him in his repose. And when, as he invariably did, as regularly as clockwork, he turned over on his side, she would then creep under the covers and snuggle up next to him.
However, one day the inevitable happened and Master found a new partner. As you can imagine, the new arrival was far from happy about the sleeping arrangements in the household. However, being unsure of her position so early in the relationship, she wisely refrained from openly showing her distaste. And she made an extra special effort when Master was at home to show affection for Micia as she quickly realized how important the cat was to him. But Micia treated her new Mistress in a rather offhand manner despite her attempts to bribe her with tasty morsels of her favourite food. She was no fool and somehow sensed that something was not quite right although she couldn’t quite put her paw on what it was.
Soon enough Micia’s intuition proved to be correct because she came home from one of her daily outings (to put on her “starving to death” act for the next door neighbour and to earn a second breakfast for her Oscar-winning performance) to find, horror of all horrors, a dog ensconced in her place.
And that was the last Master saw of Micia for despite the notices pinned on every lamp post in the neighbourhood offering a substantial reward for information about the missing cat, Micia Pusskins never returned.
The Master never forgave his lover, for letting himself be persuaded into accommodating her latest acquisition. And, soon afterwards, she moved out too. Her reason for leaving – the unbearable predictability of his lifestyle. She was young and, quite naturally, was looking for more excitement, something she knew she could never have with him. As for the Pusskins, she never found out about this because she’d already cut all her ties with the past and forged a comfortable new existence for herself in a leafy suburb nearby. They were an elderly couple with no children and that suited her just fine.