A Log to Call Home

She lived in a little space, her front door leading onto the stairs. She kept hoping that she was going to move up in the world--the bottom stair was her life's ambition. She didn't even dream of getting a spot beneath the picnic table. But now she lived in a little space, her front door leading onto the stairs.

It was a decently comfortable little space, though. Atop the log pile, one wall was heated much of the winter, being the chimney stack. All summer long it was in the shade, so not too hot. And it was fairly close to where food was placed every morning. The water dish was always full and just half a flight of stairs down. So she was pleased with her home, but even the best home still had its problems.

This one's, of course, being the stairs. Her siblings would run up and down them all day long, sometimes late into the night. Thump, thump, thump, thump, it made it impossible to sleep--to get a decent nap, she'd have to run off into the woods or hide behind the tomato plants in the garden. If she tried to sleep by the stairs, her brother would poke his head in and see if she'd like to go find some mice because he heard that they've been running around all morning laughing at how stupid the cats were because they weren't able to catch them and the mice still were free to roam wherever they pleased, eating most of the food in the garden, and he'd say that if she let them eat up the garden she wouldn't be able to sleep behind the tomato plants. But she didn't want to chase mice; why should she go run around after such an annoying little critter when there was always plenty of food beside the water bowl, down half a flight of stairs?

Or sometimes her mother would stop by and decide that she was a simple mess. She'd have to suffer through the indignity of being cleaned /in/ /public/ by her own mother, as if she were still a little baby, unable to do anything to take care of herself. She'd try to get away, but her mother was rather adept at blocking any and every escape route.

But sometimes her space was the safest around. The neighbor dogs would come over and sit on the stairs, glaring and growling at the pile of wood, at the felines they knew were somewhere inside. But they were too large to fit. Yes, at those times, she was glad to have her space. And so was her brother, who hadn't come close to catching a mouse, but did find a nice lively clump of dirt that would no longer threaten the world. And so was her mother, whom was also filthy after crawling around the wood pile. Yes, at those times, she was very glad to have a space to call home.

But still, some mornings she would step out of her space, onto the stairs, and look longingly at the bottom step, that lovely, wonderful space. Some mornings she would look at her life's ambition and once again dream.