A Conversation Between Two Cats: Part V

It was the evening, so the cats sat in the back yard, enjoying the evening shade. Autumn sat on her meowing perch, taking advantage of the chance that the blinds would open and the house dwellers would see her outside and mercifully deliver her from her pitiful state. Clem sat on the bottom step. The blinds were yet to open, so Autumn busied herself with feline vanity: a thorough licking.

"I'm hungry."  Clem, whose tongue was not quickly or frequently drawn to cat fur, needed a task and easily fell to idle conversation. Autumn, as usual, ignored the comment.

Moments passed. The sun had fallen to the horizon and the shadows now stretched long, feathering at their end, their ends lost in the ebbing orange glow.

"I'm really hungry."

Autumn paused her grooming, looked disdainfully at Clem, and resumed her lickage.

After several dozen more licks, Autumn paused and said, "They aren't feeding you because you are unwanted."

"I doubt that," Clem said. "They play with me constantly. I've been inside quite a bit, you know."

"But you are still unfed. Don't you get it?"

"Well, I intend to stick around. We'll see what happens."

"'Hope springs eternal.' I heard a human say that once. In you it is manifested, you hopeful buffoon."

"They will feed me soon. You'll see. I'm just proving my faithfulness to them to earn the priviledge."

"You are so stupid. I despise you, you orange puke."

Clem, rather than wagging his tongue, put it to better use: grooming.