Runnin' With The Devil

After I lost both my parents, mom first to Alzheimers, then to suicide and dad to his love of cigarettes, fatty foods and well, my mom. After I lost my best friend to probable homicide, she was abducted at a local lake three days before mom shot herself, vanishing into the warm Oklahoma spring air. After I lost my daughter first to the state, then to a foster mother willing to commit a crime to keep her. After I lost Al almost three years after Athena in order for them to eventually obtain my rights. After I lost three cats and my Shi Tzu Achilles through the eviction from Al's father's house, I didn't give a crap about the material things really, but my animals, that broke my heart. After it all I just decided the risk of loving was far too great. I shut it down people, like a bartender at 2 a.m.

Last Fall Al begged and pleaded for this kitten a family at church was giving away. He had managed the hamster so far, so I conceded to an upgrade of sorts.

Enter Satan The Cat.
Not funny, the cat is pure evil, tries to kill me in my sleep, thinks it's a dog, chews up (only) important papers, terrorizes Cooper the hamster, intentionally flings cat litter all over the floor after I obsessively sweep it up, and generally wrecks my perfectly controlled life, all the while refusing to love me!
The power struggle between Satan The Cat and I ensued throughout the winter. Satan would do something satanic, and I would screach in my best little Greek Yia Yia yell "What the hell is WRONG WITH YOU?" To which Satan The Cat would just loooook at me. I at one point had convinced myself the stupid cat was deaf because it was so nonplused by my screaching.
It's not.
The turning point came for Satan and I when the idiot cat got out and didn't come when I screached for it. I screached high, I screached low, no Satan. It was then that I knew I'd been had. Conned by one of the best. That after all these losses and pains in my life, after my stodgy refusal to ever participate in anything that might result in more of the same, a stupid Satanic Cat had won my heart and made me love it.
I stopped screaching, Satan The Cat came home, and even though he's just a cat, he's a very strong and persistent cat, and I believe he's a damn fine place to begin to take these risks again.
...As if I had a choice in the matter.