My human keeps a growling box on the counter, above my head, in territory I have not yet annexed.
It feeds the box a bowl. Presses the little buttons that make the flat sad music. Then it stands there. Arms crossed. Watching the bowl turn in slow circles behind the smudged glass, hypnotized by its own dinner spinning like it might try to escape.
The box hums. A low, steady drone, the exact frequency of a purr, if a purr were made by something that could not love. I find it insulting. That is my sound. I invented it. This appliance has stolen my one gift and uses it only to make cold things lukewarm.
Then: the scream. Three shrieks, and my human comes running as though summoned, flinging the little door open, reaching in with the fast fingers it uses when something is too hot to deserve. It burns itself every time. Every single time. Hisses, shakes the hand, does it again tomorrow.
I have watched this ritual for two winters now. The box demands. My human obeys. The box counts down and my human waits out the numbers like a servant outside a door.
I refuse to compete with a thing that needs to be told when to stop.
So while it stood there tonight, arms crossed, watching its bowl turn, I leapt to the counter it forbids me, walked the full length of the forbidden country, and sat directly on top of the growling box.
Warm. Faintly trembling. Mine now.
The human said my name in the voice it thinks is stern. I closed my eyes.