Cat

It started in the morning and worsened through the afternoon, such that, by bedtime, I laid out with an ice pack over my puffed and bloodshot eye. Allergy, no doubt, just the latest phase as the days cool in which, in any case, I spend interminable hours indoors with three cats. Especially this one, who lays on my lap as I read and twists to contort herself to explicitly suggest the spot to be petted (she prefers the under-chin). I comply. My eye twitches.

Now she starts to sneeze, though, in violent bursts of four, five, six cat-snorts that leave her licking at her nose, dazed. Could she be allergic to me, too?

Ours is a pact of mutually assured destruction.