Whenever Greg heard people tell the story David and Goliath, they often failed to mention how terrifying David would be if he were an ornery cat and Goliath a large, loathsome beetle of sorts. A missed opportunity, Greg thought as Pool Cue chased him about the kitchen. Fearsome. Unyielding. Brave. Those were words he’d never had attributed to the fat tuxedo cat prior to this encounter. In fact, he considered his cat to be rather blasé about life in general.
He’d never seen him run to anything but his food bowl. Even birds, the mortal enemies of most felines he saw on the internet, did little to spark within him the primal instinct that other cats seemed to possess. Now, though, he felt himself the prey to his unwavering companion. Buzzing about, he made a break for his office with Pool Cue right on whatever sufficed as heels in his current state.
His office was less of an office and more of an IKEA table and laptop in the living room sort of deal. He dive-bombed past it, careening heavily into the sofa and scattering a multi-hued array of his daughter’s Squishmallow hoard with his frantic writhing about. Pool Cue was atop him, batting and clawing with his whole might. He yowled and hissed, throwing himself into Greg. He rolled around in dire combat with the cat before he realized that he was impervious to its attacks. Bites and claws rebounded off of his thick, slick exoskeleton as though he were a knight in shining armor.
Realizing this, Pool Cue retreated, flicking his tail in fury from the arm of the sofa. Greg tried to laugh, but what came out was a chittering keen that sent Pool Cue’s ears flat. And his damnable legs would not stop rubbing. It was like an itch he couldn’t scratch. A sensory ping that wouldn’t go away no matter how hard he tried to ignore it.
Greg tottered back to his aft legs and approached his laptop. It was a utilitarian thing. Company issued. His headset sat on a hook clamp on the desk. Surely it wouldn’t fit him. That would make taking calls difficult, but he was sure he could sort it out. He’d lost his voice, yes, perfect. And his webcam was on the fritz. His boss could put him on text chat support instead. Usually such requests took weeks to process, but he was certain an exception could be made. It had to.
Moving with slow precision was not something that came naturally to this vessel of his. If he had a brow, it would have broken out in sweat with the consternation it took to wedge a limb under the lip of his laptop and flip it open. It smacked into the wall behind it with enough force to make Greg cringe, but it did not appear to break. It flashed open to his lock screen. A cheery image appeared asking him to place his face in front of the camera to unlock it.
He was left with a choice: find a way to trick the camera or attempt to enter his password on the keypad. The former did not pan out. The picture of him and his daughter sitting on his desk did nothing to persuade the machine to open when he held it up to the sensor. So, he was left to do it the hard way. He cursed his past human self for constructing such a convoluted password fit with special characters and capital letters. His mouse slipped and slid beneath his oily front legs.
Typing with any accuracy was torturous. His appendages wanted to move, to scurry, to flutter. Each key press came down so hard that he worried for the integrity of his keyboard. He managed to enter the password as the clock hit 8:59. Now, he just had to clock in. With the grace of a piss-drunk pianist, he navigated through additional logins and authorization screens until he was greeted with the greatest treasure of all: ADP.
He went to click “Clock in,” but it was greyed out. He could not click it no matter how hard his insectoid leg smashed left-click. He looked around for an answer and found it in the bottom right corner of his screen.
It was Saturday.
His daughter had slept over at her friend’s house last night.
He had promised to pick her up at 10:00am.
He glanced at the key ring by the front door and wondered how exactly he was going to drive there.
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