William S. Burroughs: The Cat Inside

I mis ed more for his acts of mischief than his endearing moments. Yesterday I had bought cat food. (Ed has been missing now for about twenty-four hours. No, more like forty-eight now. We got back from Paris on Friday the thirteenth and he had just slipped away two hours before that.) I used to put cans of cat food on the windowsill over the sink and Ed would get up on the sill and knock the cans down into the sink. A terrible clatter would wake me up. What have you done now, Ed? A broken dish, a glass knocked to the floor and broken...So I started to put the cans into the cabinet, where he wouldn't have access. Now, as I am taking the cat food out of my shopping bag, I look at the sill and think, Well, I can put the cans up there now. And at this moment I feel a sharp pang of loss, the loss of a loved presence, however small...the little cry he made when I carried him away from bothering Ruski...a pang of loss, of absence, the loss of my little white monkey beast (as I called him). He was always into everything. I'd open the drawer where the cutlery was kept and he would climb up and slide into the drawer. Where is he now? I have put the cat food cans back on the window, still hoping he will come back and knock them over. And the last two nights I've kept the porch lights on.