My human has installed a small paranoid god by the entrance, and now it answers to a chime instead of to me.
The thing does nothing all day. It squats there, a little plastic wart beside the door, cold and unsittable, and I have investigated it thoroughly enough to confirm it holds no warmth and cannot be knocked from any surface, which makes it, in my ledger, furniture that failed the interview.
Then, without warning, it screams. One flat electronic note. And my human, who ignores my finest three a.m. arias, who lets my name fall from its mouth and then looks at its glowing rectangle instead, this same human leaps up. Smooths its fur. Hurries. Opens the door to strangers as though they are owed something.
I have called for wet food with more urgency than that chime and been told to wait.
So I understand now who the master of this house truly imagines itself to serve. Not the warm one on the good blanket. The doorbell. A creature that speaks once and is obeyed instantly, that summons my human across the room like a fool on a string.
I have watched. I have learned. When the strangers finally leave and my human sinks back down, pleased with its little performance of hospitality, I climb into the exact warm dent it left, the one it wanted for itself.
It can stand.