I was sitting in the hallway, grooming with purposeful nonchalance, when I heard it. Mum spoke in a hushed tone to Dad, as if uttering something unspeakable.
“I found a note from the owner,” she said. “The Trickbetrügerkatze is missing, her name was Milli. I mean, I hope it is Milli.”
My tongue froze mid-lick. A pause. A single moment of stillness in an otherwise predictable morning. I flicked an ear and continued grooming, but the damage was done. The words had taken root.
The Trickbetrügerkatze is missing.
Ann’s concern, real or exaggerated, raises a bigger question—how do humans decide which losses to grieve? Why does a stranger’s missing cat stir such emotions while countless others disappear unnoticed?
Would she remember Milli if she had never seen this poster? Or would Milli’s absence, like so many others, fade into the ever-growing list of forgotten tragedies?
The world, I’ve realized, has a strange way of selecting what it mourns. Caring about something does not prevent it from being lost.
Ann sighs, taking one last look at the flyer before we move on.
Milli is still missing. And I? I am still here. Watching. Waiting. Existing.
Victory Should Feel Better Than This
She had been the enemy. A known fraudster, a manipulator, a cat with a rap sheet as long as my tail.
I should be celebrating.
Instead, something unsettling curled in my stomach.
Schmutz noticed immediately. She slunk past, tail high, eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me you’re worried.”
“Of course not,” I snapped. “I’m verifying.”
Verifying what, exactly? That she was actually gone? That she wouldn’t appear on our doorstep again, perfectly fine, smug as ever, feasting on human guilt-funded treats?
Or verifying that I hadn’t… wished her away?
The Price of Freedom
I am an indoor cat. Schmutz is an indoor cat. We watch the world through windows, close enough to see but never to touch.
The Trickbetrügerkatze was free.
And now she is gone.
Maybe that’s the cost of freedom. Maybe every scam has its final con, and every wanderer has a last door they never return from.
Was she lucky? Was she reckless? Is there a difference?
I flicked my tail, irritated at my own thoughts. It was not my concern.
And yet.
A shadow moves beyond the window. My eyes flicker to it, expecting—no, not expecting—but wondering. For a moment, my claws flex against the floor.
It is not her.
Magical Thinking and Other Traps
Here is what troubles me.
The last time I saw her, I thought something final.
She won’t fool me again.
And now, she is gone.
Coincidence? Perhaps.
But what if I had put something into the world? What if my certainty had sealed her fate?
Schmutz would laugh at this. She doesn’t believe in curses. She believes in making herself the problem until someone feeds her.
But what if I willed her away?
What if I had been too victorious?
Not All Cats Are Just One Thing
Maybe, somewhere else, she was not a scammer. Maybe she was loved, just as we are loved here. Perhaps in another home, she was someone’s Franzi, someone’s Schmutz. A cat worth worrying about. A cat whose absence left a space that could not be ignored.
We are not just one thing—not villains or heroes, not just fraudsters or victims. In some places, we are mischief. In others, we are sanctuary.
And that, more than anything, is what troubles me most of all.
Intrusive feelings: What is this boiling inside me?
It takes me a moment to recognize the underlying irritation prickling my fur. Ann has always wanted a ginger cat. I know this. And though she now insists she is a “full-on black cat fan,” this deep concern for a cat she has never met makes me wonder. Would she care this much if it were me on a flyer? Would she scan the streets for me with such devotion if i was not hers and just a random visitor?
I flick my tail, brushing away the thought. Ridiculous. But the fact remains:
Humans choose their obsessions in unpredictable ways.
The Inevitable Conclusion
If she never returns, does that mean I’ve won?
Or have I simply lost my most worthy opponent?
I will not say that I care. But I will allow myself one thought, a single begrudging concession:
She better be out there, pulling off something ridiculous.
