It wasn't all in his head.
It wasn't a joke, it was real, she is really real dead!
Joshua's eyes strayed to the limp body on the floor, the house cat, his grandma's best friend and probably the smartest cat he has ever come across laid dead six feet away from him.
He paced around thinking if it was a joke.
Miss Mittens was a smart cat, and she was one to actually play dead just to scare folks in the house. Well she was scaring him, he just had to hope that she was playing too.
Yet after multiple taps and the lack of reaction nor movement, he was beginning to believe this wasn't any joke.
"Miss Mittens?" Joshua got on his knees near the body, pleading at the car to crawl back out of the grave.
"Miss Mittens please come back." He begged harder, at the point of tears even, now shaking her favorite treats in her bowl in an attempt to tempt her out of death's embrace.
In truth, Joshua didn't really care about Miss Mitten's demise, sure he was sad about it, but not to the point he'd begged the corpse to move again.
He cared for the fact that Miss Mittens chose the worst time to die, when he was alone and in charge of her.
He painfully remembered the scenes of two hours before, just when his mother and grandmother went out for some shopping and Chinese for her birthday.
His grandma had initially refused, saying she couldn't leave Miss Mittens alone, he and his mom had insisted.
Even to the point that he decided to be a good grandson and stay back to care for Miss Mittens.
His grandma gave him the list of the cat's schedule and lectured him of her feeding times while he listened to it and sent her off saying.
"It's just an old female cat, What could possibly go wrong."
He was quite validated in the fact that no one could have predicted that the cat would die.
Yet he can predict that if she doesn't come back to life before his mom and grandma come back, he will die next.
He spent the next 30 minutes begging, asking, cajoling, praying and finally trying to resuscitate the cat back to life but to no avail.
He sat on the floor in exasperation, accepting his faith, and just as suddenly, he heard the dreaded sound of his mom's car pulling into the driveway.
Doors were closed and nylon packages were ruffled as they made their way to the front door.
Joshua stood up and walked to open it, deciding to accept his fate like a man and break the news to his grandma.
After the doorbell, he opened the door and helped them with their loads.
After everyone had settled he dropped the bombshell.
"Miss Mittens is dead." The silence could be cut with a knife.
His mom looked at him, positioned frozen with the noodles halfway to her mouth, both their eyes then looked at grandma.
"What's that boy? I couldn't hear you well."
"Miss Mittens is dead." He repeated louder for her to hear.
She gave a slight frown and continued eating. Quite frankly the lack of emotion from her hurt his feelings. He had spent the better part of the night trying to bring the cat back when he could have just stuffed her in a shoebox and waited for the burial to be done with it.
"Grandma Miss Mittens is dead!" He proclaimed it louder.
"I heard you the first time, boy. I just didn't believe ya." She replied back..
"Don't believe me? Her body isn't moving."
"Then she's asleep."
"She isn't waking up!" He said shouting now. His mother held my arm to warn me but he was having none of it.
Surprisingly his Grandma stood up, walked slowly to the kitchen with a fishbone in hand.
She dropped it in Miss Mittens Bowl and tapped Miss Mittens once.
Immediately, this cat who he had been begging for the last 2 hours to move, sprung up to go eat the bone.
He looked at the cat in shock and my mother looked at me in disbelief while my grandma just shook her head and went back to the table.
He stayed watching Miss Mittens who was once dead now eat the bone purring softly.
He was pained yet decided to partake in the activities of that night, he had simply chosen to believe that it was all in his head.
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