Over zealous use

That uncomfortable feeling when hungry cats are watching you eat, some black and white thought processes unleashed in survival mode. Sure of something but unsure of anything. I might have indeed woken up to find myself in the body of a strange large insect, or just asleep and restrained by the over zealous use of commas and colons and other instruments of torture. Culture and kidnapping, treason and fertility, all that had conspired against me in my death sentence. Of course none of those things happened, only the uncomfortable feeling that remains. Those cat's eyes drilling into me and complaining wordlessly with that sense of animal injustice that cant quite be understood by mere humans. Why do I eat while they go hungry? Why do I refuse to share these common scraps with a simple animal? They have padded away for the rich opportunities that I can only imagine.

I have accepted my status and place in the food chain. I shushed and kicked the cats away and they left without complaint. "There are better mice out there" I thought. I think that they also thought that. I reflected on how the cats could squeeze back through the cell's bars and how I,  bigger and better fed for the moment could not. For a few seconds I thought I'd have gladly changed places with a cat or even an insect. My own plight was perilous, here in this filthy jail, dark and damp. But then again I have been fed and all my lessons of living life in any given moment seemed to make sense. I applauded my own bizarre circumstance, I denied the cat's their free power over me and I sat back against the stone. All round was a prison's silence, as if all the others had reconciled themselves and quietly remained in deep reflection. No calling out or abuse, no rattles and cries, just a heady gloominess and reserve. It was a dungeon indeed but I was, in this space, at the top of the heap.