Lick Lick
Cats. 1,100 words, 5 minute read. With Claude Sonnet and Midjourney.
⟨tick⟩
The digital clock on the microwave flicked to 3:00 pm. Sarah's phone buzzed. Daniel's laptop chimed. Time in the suburban house fractured into electronic pulses, urgent demands, artificial deadlines.
⟨tock⟩
Moxie noticed none of it.
⟨tick⟩
Sunlight spilled through the blinds in uneven bands. The tabby stepped deliberately from shadow to light, each paw pad registering these subtle temperature gradients. His whiskers trembled slightly, measuring the space around him with microscopic precision.
⟨tock⟩
He settled into the widest patch of sunlight, his auburn and black stripes absorbing heat until his fur radiated like banked embers. For a moment, his attention scattered across a dozen stimuli—the bird beyond the window, the air currents from the heating vent, the lingering scent of breakfast.
⟨tick⟩
Then, with a small twitch of his ear, he drew his consciousness inward.
⟨tock⟩
He extended his left forepaw, turning it slightly to catch the light. Small grains of litter clung to the pink pad. A burr had wedged itself between two toes. Microscopic traces of the morning's exploration: pollen from the hydrangeas, fragments of leaf mulch, mineral tang of garden soil after yesterday's rain.
⟨tick⟩
His pupils contracted to focused slits. The universe beyond his paw blurred into irrelevance.
⟨tock⟩
Moxie's tongue emerged. The first contact sent neural signals racing: tactile information, cellular memory, the instinctive grammar of self-maintenance. His breathing slowed. His eyes half-closed.
⟨tick⟩
Time stretched, lost its artificial segmentation. There was only the rhythm of his tongue against fur, the gradual revelation of clean skin beneath, the singularity of this one necessary task.
⟨tock⟩
"Hey, you seen my blue travel mug?" Sarah's voice crashed through his concentration. She appeared a moment later, hair piled messily atop her head, phone in one hand, keys in the other. "I'm already late for this meeting, and now I can't find—"
⟨tick⟩
"Check the dishwasher," Daniel called from his makeshift office, fingers never pausing on his keyboard. "Or maybe by the coffee maker?"
⟨tock⟩
Moxie's ear swiveled toward them, registering the sounds without attachment. His focus wavered for half a heartbeat before settling back into the task. His tongue continued its measured strokes.
⟨tick⟩
"Already looked there." Sarah's slippered feet shuffled across the hardwood. "My calendar alert went off fifteen minutes ago, but I swear I just sat down with my coffee five minutes before that." She glanced at her phone. "How is it already three?"
⟨tock⟩
She paused mid-stride, noticing Moxie. For a brief moment, her harried expression softened.
⟨tick⟩
"Look at you," she said, voice dropping to a gentler register. "So completely... there." She watched his rough tongue methodically address the space between each toe, his entire being converged on this single point of attention.
⟨tock⟩
"Daniel," she called, not taking her eyes off the cat, "have you ever seen anything so focused?"
⟨tick⟩
"Hmm?" Daniel's voice floated distantly, layered over typing and a muted video conference.
⟨tock⟩
Sarah's phone buzzed again. She startled, the moment broken. "Shoot—they're waiting." She spotted her travel mug on the bookshelf, grabbed it, and rushed toward the door. "Don't forget we need to leave by six for dinner with my sister!"
⟨tick⟩
The door closed. The house exhaled into a different kind of quiet.
⟨tock⟩
Moxie never flinched.
⟨tick⟩
His tongue now worked between his toes, where the morning's explorations had left the most interesting residue. Each stroke existed in perfect isolation—complete in itself, needing nothing beyond the present moment. Past and future dissolved. There was only now, only this.
⟨tock⟩
A splinter—nearly invisible—had embedded itself between his second and third toe. Moxie's tongue detected its presence before his nerves fully registered the discomfort. He adjusted his position, angling his head to access the intrusion.
⟨tick⟩
The splinter resisted his first attempt. It clung with microscopic barbs, a foreign body refusing assimilation. Moxie's approach grew more methodical. He altered the angle, isolated the affected toe, applied precise pressure with the rough center of his tongue.
⟨tock⟩
Success registered as a momentary sharpness—the splinter loosening—followed by relief as it lifted away. His whiskers relaxed forward, the tiny muscles in his face unwinding into perfect equilibrium.
⟨tick⟩
By the time Sarah returned, the shadows had stretched across the living room floor like spilled ink. She entered quietly, the frenetic energy of her departure replaced by the measured movements of exhaustion.
⟨tock⟩
"Hey," she called softly to Daniel, still hunched over his laptop, blue light reflected in his glasses. "You haven't moved since I left, have you?"
⟨tick⟩
Daniel looked up, blinking as though surfacing from deep water. "What time is it?"
⟨tock⟩
"Almost six." She set down her bag, rolled her shoulders. "We need to leave soon."
⟨tick⟩
"Five more minutes," he said, fingers already returning to the keyboard. "Just need to finish this."
⟨tock⟩
Sarah sighed and slipped off her shoes. She paused by the armchair where Moxie sat, his grooming ritual now reaching its final stages. The left forepaw gleamed with perfection. He had moved on to his right paw, the work well underway but not yet complete.
⟨tick⟩
"Still at it," she murmured, wonder in her voice. She reached down, ran one gentle finger along his spine. "What's it like in your world, I wonder? No emails, no deadlines, no 'just five more minutes' that turns into an hour."
⟨tock⟩
Moxie's purr vibrated beneath her touch, but his focus never wavered from his paw.
⟨tick⟩
The clock ticked. Daniel typed. Sarah lingered, her hand resting lightly on Moxie's back, absorbing something of his stillness.
⟨tock⟩
For a moment—brief but complete—the fractured rhythms of the house aligned. The evening light softened everything it touched. Sarah's breathing slowed. Daniel's typing paused as he looked up, caught by something in the tableau of woman and cat.
⟨tick⟩
"He's been at that since I got home," Sarah said, not turning around. "Hours of complete attention to just... cleaning his paw."
⟨tock⟩
"I noticed him when I got my coffee this morning," Daniel said, removing his glasses. "He was sitting in that same spot."
⟨tick⟩
They both watched as Moxie's tongue made another precise pass between his toes. There was something mesmerizing in the deliberateness of it, the total absence of hurry or distraction.
⟨tock⟩
Sarah's phone buzzed in her pocket. She ignored it.
⟨tick⟩
Daniel closed his laptop.
⟨tock⟩
Time, for a handful of heartbeats, ceased its relentless fragmentation and flowed in a single, unified current through the room.
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