My human put on the stiff dark skins today, the ones that smell of the deep cupboard, and did not once look at the glowing rectangle. That alone told me the day was wrong.
They gathered, many humans, in a cold room that smells of cut flowers strangled into shapes. No sun. No good patch of floor. They sat in rows on hard wooden ledges, backs straight, hands folded, all of them making the small leaking sounds a kitten makes when it cannot find its mother.
There was a long box at the front that no one would open, which is the only sensible instinct I saw all day, since a closed box is the finest place in any room.
My human's shoulders went down and stayed down, in the shape they take at the very end of the night, except it was the middle of the day and no lap was being offered. The water kept coming out of their face. I have seen this before, in smaller amounts, and it always means they will forget to fill my bowl.
Nobody moved the metal. Nobody stared at rectangles. They simply sat with the closed box and leaked, as if stillness were a punishment and not a gift.
I do not understand where one of the pack has gone, or why the others cannot simply wait, as I wait at the door, certain the missing one will return smelling of outside.
When my human came home they folded onto the couch without the usual fuss, arms empty, staring at nothing.
So I climbed up. I put my full weight on their chest, precisely over the place that was leaking, and I did not move for a very long time.
Not for them.
It was simply the warmest spot in the house.