My human returned last night in a state I have only ever seen in myself, and only during a hunt.
It came through the door breathing wrong, arms full of boxes it did not have when it left, eyes too wide, moving too fast, still wearing the outside cold in its fur. It had gone out into the dark on purpose. Before the sun. To stand, I have gathered, in a herd of other humans, all of them pressing toward the same glowing store, all of them wanting the same flat box, all of them convinced that today the box costs less and tomorrow it will cost more, as if a thing's worth changes with the hour.
I know exactly one thing about worth. A sunny cushion is worth everything at noon and nothing at midnight, and I do not need a store to tell me when.
It stacked the boxes by the wall. A tower. Cardboard, my favorite substance in this world, delivered to my home in bulk while the human believed it was buying something else entirely. It thinks it hunted a television. It thinks it saved money, which is a thing I have never seen and do not believe in.
Look at it now. Asleep sitting up, thumb still twitching toward a screen that has finally gone dark, guarding purchases it is too tired to open.
I climbed the tower while it slept. I sat at the summit, the highest point in the room, surveying the spoils it dragged home for me.
Then I pushed the smallest box off the top and watched it fall.
Mine. All of it. It just doesn't know the receipt yet.