The shadow cast by the armchair has stretched to the exact point where the rug meets the hardwood. The patch of afternoon sun, once a perfect, warm pool on the floorboards, has just vanished. The quality of the air in the apartment has shifted, cooling and stilling. These are the three signs, the infallible trinity, that declare the Dinner Hour.
And the human is not moving.
Bug, a cat of precise, black velvet lines, is a statue of disbelief in the living room doorway. Her stomach is a tiny, tight knot. She watches Sarah, who is bathed in the blue, flickering light of a small screen, her thumb moving in a rhythmic, useless scroll.
Bug gives it a moment. Perhaps the human’s internal clock is merely slow.
Nothing.
Bug advances. She pads silently across the rug, her tail a rigid, vertical line. She stops beside the couch and issues a single, sharp mrrp? It is a question, but not a polite one.
“Hmm?” Sarah glances down, a brief smile. “Hi, sweetie. It’s not time.”
Bug blinks. She does not blink in confusion; she blinks in judgment. The human has lied.
She walks, with great purpose, into the kitchen. Her ceramic bowl sits empty, gleaming under the offensive overhead light. Bug taps the rim of her bowl with one claw. The tink is sharp, a sound like a tiny bell ringing for a service that is catastrophically late.
“It’s not time, Bug,” Sarah calls, her voice full of that bright, maddening patience. “It’s only five. We got an extra hour, remember? We ‘fell back’.”
Bug does not care about falling. She cares about food. The explanation is gibberish. She returns to the living room, plants herself directly in Sarah’s line of sight, and meows. It is not a request. It is a demand for clarification.
By 5:40, the protests have escalated. The polite tinks are gone. Bug is now following Sarah, a persistent, four-legged shadow of complaint.
“Bug, please,” Sarah says, walking into the kitchen to get a glass of water, Bug glued to her ankle. “It’s just what we do. It’s for . . . for the farmers. So they have more light.”
Bug stops. She looks at Sarah, then swivels her head to the sliding glass door. Beyond it is a concrete balcony, a gray city sky, and a single, very dead fern. There are no farmers.
“Okay, fine,” Sarah huffs, leaning against the counter. She is talking more to herself now than to the cat. “It’s not the farmers. It’s... electricity. We shift the daylight. We save energy.”
Bug looks up at Sarah, who is standing directly beneath a fully illuminated, three-bulb track light. The television is still murmuring in the other room. The human is a hypocrite.
Bug walks to the tall pantry cabinet, the holy source. She sits, lifts a precise black paw, and begins to rhythmically thwack the laminate door. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
“Stop it.” Sarah’s voice is tight. “It’s not about our energy, it’s about the grid. It’s . . . it’s just social inertia, okay? It’s one hour.”
This is the final betrayal. One hour, to a creature whose entire universe is regulated by the sun and the stomach, is an eternity. This is not a delay; this is a famine.
Bug sinks to the linoleum. She does not just lie down; she collapses, a dramatic, liquid pool of black fur. She turns her head to the side, away from her tormentor, and produces a sound. It begins in her chest, a low, tragic rumble that climbs into a thin, vibrating keen. It is the sound of a world that has lost its foundation. It is the sound of profound, systemic injustice.
Sarah stares. The cat is vibrating. All the hollow, handed-down justifications—the agriculture, the power grids, the abstract ‘social good’—they evaporate against the sheer, simple, biological truth of that sound.
“This is ridiculous,” Sarah mutters. She looks at the wall clock: 4:59. She is in a standoff with a ten-pound animal over a concept she cannot, in this moment, adequately defend.
The clock digit flips. 6:00.
“Fine,” Sarah announces, her voice brittle. “It’s dinner time.”
The wail cuts off, mid-vibration. Bug is instantly on her feet, a silent, expectant angel. The sound of the food bin popping open is a benediction. The rattle of kibble hitting the ceramic bowl is a small, perfect avalanche.
Bug dives in, the frantic, happy crunching the only sound in the kitchen. The contract is renewed. The universe, perilously close to collapse, has been restored to order.
The next morning, light slices through the gap in the curtains, hot and white. It lands directly on Sarah’s face.
She groans, a thick, sleep-filled sound, and twists away, burying her head under the pillow. It feels like the middle of the night. It must be.
She fumbles for her phone. The screen glows, painfully bright: 6:03 AM.
The world is bright and cheerful and wrong. She groans again, trying to sink back into sleep, but the sun is insistent. It is an arbitrary, celestial bully.
A moment later, a small, warm weight settles on her chest. A deep, rumbling purr begins, vibrating through the comforter. Bug is awake. Bug will soon be fed. And Bug has decided, correctly, that it is time.