text: The real difference between you and me is your incessant inane questions. What is my name? What, really, is it to you, when you often just end up catching the next whim floating in your head and christen me just that? I am whatever you decide to call me. I have been Mindy, Luna, and Talia. I have been that mousy sound you make with your mouth, or that imperious clicking of your fingers. I have been Marbles, Cupcake, and Lipstick. Why ask if you don’t care for my answer? Where do I live? You think because you close the door at night and stay within the confines of your same routine that I should be the same. I live. Could the same be said of you? ...................................................................................... I liked that she didn’t like me right away. We spent the first few weeks staying in the periphery of each other’s existence, but never out of it. We had a mutual interest in something else - the squawky feathery meatballs she was determined to befriend and feed, and that I was determined to feed on. Then, without the uhming and aahing they usually do, she named me. “Marbles, please don’t eat the lorikeets. I really like them.” She was leaving out a small plate of sausages for me while saying that, so an understanding was forged that I wouldn’t try to hunt them where she could see. I watched her often from across the road, and she eyed me from her balcony. I watched her attempts at petting every bird that came her way, and heard her yelp when the cockatoo she named Squawk nipped her finger. She had named everyone by the time I approached her door for the first time. Of course I picked the night she would be home alone. Unlike her, I know every nook and cranny of that house. I have been the only constant in that house while families move in and out in a whirlwind around me. I don’t remember all their faces or all the names they give me. The impasse at the doorway lasted only seconds. She closed the door behind me as soon as I strode in to inspect the place. It smelt different, but it always does with each new family. She apologised for the lack of sausage but offered me water. The beak-shaped scar on her finger offended me as she made no attempts to pet me in any way. I don’t generally like having strangers’ hands all over me, but this was a woman I have watched pet everyone within reach. Her reaction to my purring was one of, oddly, bewilderment. She sat down, cross-legged on the floor as I easily stepped onto her lap. She gingerly patted my back the way you would a crying acquaintance, but the worry in her voice was unmistakable. “Are you okay Marbles? Do you need help? Are you choking on something?” More awkward pats on my back. I buried my face in the warmth of her woolly sweater. She must not be too smart, but I liked the smell of her. The purrs echoed off the walls of her house. She did eventually figure it out, and in stories relayed to visitors to the house later, I found out mine was the first purr she had ever heard. I was, in fact, the first cat in her life. I had accidentally staked a claim on her, and her on me, while I was trying to move back into the house that belonged to me. ................................................................................. These days my name is Callie. I don’t visit that house very often, unless the children are having dinner. The family that came in after her had a cat of their own, so I was happy to let him pretend he owned the place. He couldn’t, not really. Not without smelling my scent in every nook and cranny of the house. I don’t dwell too much on the ones that have come and gone, but sometimes I get a whiff of her scent lingering in that house. Sometimes I wonder if she remembers those lazy Sunday mornings, of me lying on her chest, of her gently smoothing the hairs of my back. I liked being Marbles. ..................................................................................... Author's note : This is fiction, but not quite. This is a tribute to that time in my life Marbles picked me to be hers.