Close Encounters of the Furred Kind

by Tom Cox

This new flap, I read, would store the microchip numbers of up to thirty-two cats. I couldn’t help but be intrigued about the conversation that had led to this decision.

I remembered from my childhood what it was like to lose a young cat suddenly in tragic circumstances and replace him rashly with another. It was not necessarily a bad thing – you were, in the end, filling an empty space with an animal’s life that you hoped to quickly make better – but it could stir up a small, confusing emotional dust storm and cause a brief, acrid taste of disloyalty.