In a quiet house where the sunbeams frequently visited the floorboards, lived a grey tabby with a vibrant pink collar and a very peculiar philosophy. While other felines spent their days curled into tight, symmetrical circles, this particular tabby believed that life was best lived on the precipice.
She was a master of the forward facing dangle.
It began at the plush tower by the window. Most would look at the soft, carpeted basin and see a bed. She saw a launchpad. She would settle her back half into the cushion, but her front legs belonged to the air. They hung down like two furry pillars, swaying slightly as she watched the birds outside. To her, a limb supported by a surface was a limb wasted.
The obsession followed her into every room. In the heart of the kitchen, she would leap onto the dark, speckled counter. She didn’t walk to the center to find a scrap of food, instead, she marched straight to the rim. With the precision of a tightrope walker, she would park her chest at the very brink, letting her paws hover over the empty space above the barstools.
Even in the bathroom, the porcelain ledge was not a boundary, but a destination. She would perch there, her striped front legs cascading over the side like a waterfall made of velvet.
Her roommates often paused to wonder if she had simply forgotten how to retract her paws, or if she was practicing for a circus act that had yet to be announced. But the tabby would only blink her golden eyes, perfectly balanced and entirely relaxed. She knew a secret that the rest of the world had ignored, why bother with the effort of standing when you can let the earth’s pull do the work for you?
She remained a vertical mystery, a creature who treated every ledge as a throne and every drop off as a chance to hang out literally.
Shannon Willis can usually be found in the company of furry friends. A passionate animal enthusiast, her work is often inspired by her deep love for cats, dogs, and the animal kingdom as a whole.
