My cat has learned to speak with a human voice, not unlike my own, though dissimilar by reason of issuing from a feline throat. She likes to crouch beneath my writing desk and say horrible things; at times she will climb upon my shoulders and read what I work at, her tail lashing with concentration, and sound the words in her mockery of a voice. Her taste in literature tends toward the macabre, not to say the violent. Her favorite words are ‘blood’ and ‘kill’. Several times I have woken in the darkest hours to find her curled upon the pillow next to my head, whispering as she dreams, “Kill… kill… kill…” The sweetest smile is upon her face at such times.

When I am finished writing she will complain and yowl until I upend the well into her dish and she has swallowed the dregs of the ink. She has a rough courtesy, and always thanks me as nicely as she can through lips, tongue, and teeth black as pitch. In the garden I hear her singing, sometimes, as she hunts.

Feathers fly
Blood, oh blood
Sweet in the mouth
Death in the grass

Neck crack
And back break
Blood, oh blood
Sweet in the mouth
Death in the grass