Sarah Morgan
This prompt from You Write the Title III is from EFS.
I read The Tao of Pooh a long time ago so I don’t think I’d be able to do a parody well. I’ll just go literal.
The way of Henry. Well, Henry is the cat. I would call him my cat, but his sense of self-directedness is such that it would be ludicrous. Let’s just say that we’re roommates. Until he learns doorknobs, at which point I will be superfluous and, no doubt, done away with.
The way of Henry is one of triumph: saved from an abandoned apartment in Washington, NJ as a kitten, he’s gone from a tiny bag of bones to a zaftig master of his domain.
The current way of Henry is pacing on the seat of the chair I’m sitting on the edge of. It is less than an hour until his food dispenser dumps kibble, so I have a small, mildly annoyed shadow. Evenings are a charmed time around here.
The way of Henry is one of frustration: impotent bird-gazing and intermittent meowing for things that he has never gotten and will never get but will not abandon hope of (table scraps, an open front door). But the alternative to frustration is letting him outside, and first of all, I live on the second floor; and second of all, he falls of things. Like, really more often than a cat should. The outdoor world is not his place.
The way of Henry is one of nondenominational attention-gathering. All people, all animals. He trots up to dogs, small children, anyone, ready to introduce himself and see what’s going on. He is not above poorly considered acrobatics if this opening does not pan out successfully.
There you have it. The Tao of Henry.
Also in the You Write the Title III series:
