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From The Journal of the Velveteen Blanket

Dearest Bastet,
Thrice-Blessed Nap Taker, Watcher of Radiators, First of Her Name in the Lint Trap,

They went meandering yet again.

No announcement. No offering of sacrificial tuna-age. No delicious salmon. No. Just a melancholic, semi-broken, too oft used suitcase.
And a rather, if I am pressed, pathetic. Yes that’s the word. Pathetic little wave like I’m supposed to know what it means. Like betrayal and desertion is so deftly folded beneath unclawed fingers. I do not speak “farewell” as you, my dear goddess, and they are well aware. I am a gentleman of meagre but befitting talents. I speak “bowl.” And it was not filled to my exacting standards.

I have not eaten since.
(I have eaten. But I did so with great reluctance. That is considerably different. Of course, you will understand. For starvation protests are for the spectacle. The watchers to understand their own guilt. My abandoners had, well abandoned the fold and resultingly, I saw little to be gained from a spectacle creation. Without valid spectators. Poe of course, would have watched mercilessly as my body disintegrated into biscuit crumbs. She may well, I might add, have eaten the crumbs of me should I have met my demise. Simply put, I could not bring myself to give her the satisfaction. (Besides I was marginally hungry)

I have repositioned myself on mother one’s pillow.
Not for comfort. For surveillance.
Her scent fades.
My trust already has vanished into the stench of dust mites and Akela Jean Underland.

I hissed at the window today.
Poe applauded emotionally. Akela barely stirred.

They said she went somewhere called “King’s Bin.”
A place where lies wear lanyards and sandwiches are never shared.
I do not believe in it. The king should be put in a bin. Not visited in it.

And yet—
I watched the door.
I waited longer than I meant to.
I even blinked slowly at the letter on the floor.

I do not know who I am anymore.

They return, eventually. They always do. And when they do, I shall greet her as one must: By sitting exactly where they want to put their bag.

Let them know what loss feels like. Let them feel it in their bones as I.

I am not bitter.
I am awakened.

And now I shall awaken them at pre dawn.

Because it is my want.

Yours in curated distance and dramatic silence,
—Mowgli the Melancholy
Guardian of Absence, Child of the Blanket Moon, Crumb-Hoarder in Chief

High Priest of the Pointed Paw, Reluctant Gourmand, Disruptor of Dreams.

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