My human has been handed a strip of dead white ribbon and cannot let it go.
The tall one at the door offered it up as if presenting tribute, and my human took it, and did the thing it always does with paper it deems important: it squinted. It ran a thumb down the length of it. It made the small hopeless sound it also makes at the glowing rectangle, the one that means numbers have disappointed it again.
I do not care what the numbers say. I care that the ribbon curls.
It curls beautifully. It springs and coils when it falls, it whispers when a draft crosses the floor, it lives in a way nothing else on the counter bothers to. My human sees a record of things it can no longer afford. I see the only prey in this house that comes pre-wounded.
It set the ribbon down to attend to the bags. Fresh warm bags, crinkling with promise, and it turned its whole devotion toward them.
That was the mistake.
I placed one deliberate paw on the ribbon and drew it slowly, slowly, to the floor's edge, watching my human not watch me. It kept unpacking. It kept believing the bags were the event of the evening.
I let the ribbon fall.
It slid off the counter without a sound, coiled once in the air, and settled under the couch where nothing is ever recovered. My human turned at the wrong moment, saw the empty spot, and made the sound again.
I did not do this out of malice. I did it because it was curling, and unattended, and mine.
The bags, I'll allow it to keep.
For now.