My human has begun performing for a glowing rectangle that will not even sit in its lap.
There it kneels on the floor, propped against a stack of books like some shrine, talking and talking to no one in the room. I have checked. There is no one in the room. Yet my human smiles, waves, laughs at nothing, reads little rivers of light that scroll up the glass and thanks them, out loud, as if they were bringing tribute.
It performs the same tricks it will not perform for me. The bright voice. The eager face. The eyes wide with the desire to be liked. I have wanted that face pointed at me for years. I get it for eleven seconds after the food bowl empties and never again.
Now the whole apartment must go silent for this ritual. When I announce myself, properly, at volume, my human hisses "not now" and turns the glass slightly away, as if I am the intruder. Me. In my own house. Muted for a swarm of admirers who cannot even reach through the glass to scratch under a chin.
So I did the only correct thing.
I walked, slow and deliberate, directly across the propped rectangle, tail up, and settled my full weight upon it, blocking the light entirely. My human made a sound of distress and reached to move me. I permitted the touch. I did not permit the moving.
The little rivers of light can wait. The audience can starve.
There is only one creature in this room worth pointing a face at, and I have simply reminded everyone, including the glass, who that is.