Mick
By Kitty d’Literatii

Mick, or to give him his full name, Michael Humble Derek Bumblecat, or his nickname Mickey-Pooh, came to live with us a year after we were married.  We had just moved into a second floor flat with no access to a garden.  There was however a balcony from which he could peer down into the gardens below.

From the very beginning Mick was an odd cat. But then, perhaps, it was because from a tiny kitten to maturity, he only spent time in the company of humans.  Humans who treated him, well, like another human.  As a kitten Niall would play with him, twirling him round and round on the shiny kitchen floor and then pushing him, sliding across the room.  Mick loved this game and time and again would run back for more, until eventually Niall would tire of the game.  He also loved Niall to flick a ball of silver paper at him, Mick would leap into the air and catch the ball between his two front paws, just like a goalkeeper.

From the very start he would not sleep by himself at night.  He would scratch at our bedroom door and cry piteously to be allowed to join us.  We allowed him in, for a few days until he settles in, we thought.  It became a lifelong arrangement.  At first he tried to climb under the doona to sleep but after firmly being placed on top he settled down.  He never slept on Nialls’ side of the bed but always curled up in the crook of my bent knees.  Whenever I wanted to change position he would make himself into a dead weight so that I had to make myself comfortable around him.

He disliked it if I slept in late in the morning and if I were sleeping on my back, would very carefully sit on my chest.  He would then very very gently touch one of my closed eyelids with his paw.  If that did not awaken me the next touch would be a little less gentle. One morning, lying awake with my eyes closed, I tested him out to see how far he would go.  By and by the taps stopped, he then kept his paw on my closed eyelid.  Gradually and infinitesimally he began to put pressure on the eyelid.  I eventually opened the other eyelid at which Mick gave forth a most indignant miaow, as if to say about time.