"I want some fresh water."
I wasn't exactly accustomed to hearing someone speak to me in the morning. Still half asleep, I didn't pay it much attention. "Ok, someone just spoke to me and they apparently want fresh water. Whatever, back to sleep," I thought.
"Hey! I want some fresh water!"
My eyes opened wide, much more awake now. "Ok, someone's in my apartment and they want...fresh water? WTF?" I puzzled. I turned over in bed, kind of afraid and really confused. There was no one in my room besides my cat, Smokey. "Hello?" I called, expecting to get an answer from somewhere else in my apartment. To my surprise, I got a reply from in my room. More precisely, from a furry animal sitting on the floor in front of me.
"What are you yelling for?"
The words came out of the orange tabby sitting upright in the middle of my bedroom floor. I looked at Smokey with eyes wide, mouth agape. When he saw the look on my face, he crouched lower to the floor with his ears back, looking as frightened as me. "You can talk?!" I asked him.
"Wait. You can understand me?!" he replied.
"Yeah. You're speaking English. You didn't notice?"
Smokey scratched himself a bit and said, "No, I didn't. It doesn't sound English to me. You didn't notice that you're speaking feline?"
"I'm not," I said. We looked at each other, my eyebrows saying "huh?" and the tilt of his head saying "what?" "So we can just magically understand each other all of a sudden. I guess we should make the best of it, I'm pretty sure I have a million questions to ask you."
"Really?" Smokey said.
"Of course! Don't you have stuff you'd like to ask me?"
"Hmm." He licked his paw, rubbed it on his face and said, "Can't think of anything."
I was incredulous. "You don't want to know what some of these things I've told you mean? Ok, like when I tell you not to drink out of the toilet. You clearly don't understand that because you keep doing it again and again."
"Oh, no I understand that," he said matter of factly.
"Wow. Well why do you drink out of the toilet? You do realize what goes in there right?"
"Yeah but it's better than that week old crap in the bowl on the floor." He gestured his head to the blue bowl of water on the floor next to his food.
"It's really that bad?" I asked.
"Try it for yourself," he challenged.
"Yuck," I said instinctively.
"Exactly," Smokey said triumphantly.
"Okay okay, I'll get you some fresh water." I walked into the kitchen, got a clean bowl from the cupboard, filled it up with cold water and gave it to him.
"Actually...I do have a question for you," Smokey said. "What's with the name? Smokey? I'm an orange tabby."
"Yeah, hehe, it was supposed to be ironic," I replied. Unamused, Smokey just stared at me. "Sorry," I said. "You know you have a pretty bad attitude."
"Yeah, I'm a cat."
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Will Rich and Smokey's new way of communicating bring them closer together or tear them apart? How are they suddenly able to communicate? Is Smokey really this much of a jerk? Find out...maybe never!
