The Sparrow's Path

Saturday

"I don't know why Linda invited me to dinner on Thursday," Barbara pondered aloud. "That's the thirteenth, doesn't she know I have a dentist appointment on the thirteenth? I can't go, I just can't. I mean I'd love to, it was lovely for her to invite me, but really how could she expect me to show up after going to the dentist? She's a sweetheart but it's like, 'Hello?' there are other people to think about other than yourself, you know? I said there are other people to think about, Julian. Julian, are you there?"

Julian cradled the phone between the side of his head and right shoulder. He was crouched down on his haunches in the sunroom, adjusting and re-adjusting the configuration of the automatic litter box. The machine consisted of a globe-shaped chamber which rested on motorized gears that rotated the apparatus counter-clockwise and back, separating the waste from the litter and letting it fall into a basin below. Unfortunately, the chamber had slipped off the gears, with the front opening, meant for the cat to enter, stuck in a transitory position and the litter siphoned into a side-pocket, unusable in its current state. Julian had tried the reset button, plugging and unplugging the motorized basin, and manually lifting and repositioning the globe, to no avail.

Franny paced back and forth between Julian and the sunroom door, processing the scene before her. A functioning litter box was by far her preferred option, one she had utilized many times in the past with a high rate of satisfaction, but the reality that it may not be available was gradually creeping in, transforming the pointed glare on her face from annoyance to concern. She had gone outside the box a few times before, mostly when Julian returned home after disappearing for a few days, and it wouldn't really be all that much trouble for her to head over to the foyer by the front door and do her business. To Julian, it appeared as though her current dilemma -- flee to the front door or wait for the litter box to work -- was less about the pros and cons of each alternative, and more about whether she ought to have faith in him, to back him and his ability to fix the litter box she so coveted.

Julian did not want to disappoint Franny; she was a well-behaved cat who, outside of natural and reasonable cravings for food and attention, did not demand much maintenance. Yet he knew each loop she took around the sunroom -- intensifying in pace and agitation -- was like a timer counting down the moments until his time was up. It was all up to him, and he could feel the anxiety of the moment swell in his head, clouding his judgment even as he listened to and tried to empathize with Barbara and her consternations.

He tried to convince himself that he would be able to maintain the dialogue with Barbara even as he fixed Franny's litter box, but Barbara began to detect his distraction over the phone, and Franny started to scratch the sunroom carpet in the rhythmic, cyclical swoops that signalled her moment of release was fast approaching. His anxiety rapidly morphed into panic and despair. He was failing both of his companions at the same time and for a brief moment the weight of his shortcomings felt like it would buckle his ankles and send him sprawling to the ground.

Franny, you deserve to shit in your box, and I really wanted to make that happen for you, he confessed to himself. Upon resigning to her fate while preparing for the moment which was now imminent, Franny stopped in the middle of the sunroom carpet, faced Julian, braced herself in a hovered squat, and commenced her business.

"Linda is just trying to be friendly. She probably didn't know about your appointment. I wouldn't take it personally," Julian blurted back. To his surprise, his response was both appropriately within the context of Barbara's lamenting as well as reasonably sound advice. Despite the few seconds of dead air that had passed, Barbara accepted his reply in stride and continued with her appeal for his sympathy.

"But I told her about the dentist three weeks ago! She could have invited me any other day. Now I have to go change my appointment."

As her business concluded, the grimace on Franny's face receded, and she gently began to purr. Julian stood up, releasing the lactic acid which had accumulated in his quads from the prolonged squatting. Whatever had formed behind Franny was obstructed from his view for now. She looked at him in both relief and disappointment. He knew there was now a debt of guilt he would have to pay back later with a copious clean-up job and sustained affection by way of several uninterrupted belly scratches once Franny had forgiven him.