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Gatekeeper

B.W. Carter

(first published online at The Drabble, 1/22/2021)

    The cat (any cat, really) sits on her haunches by the back door, eyeing a beetle knocked on its back while trundling. The cat (tail thumping linoleum like a patrolman who, newly stumbled upon some vagabond, passes his baton palm to palm) measures up her quarry, one paw raised over tiny wheeling legs.
    Pink flicker of tongue; steady, steady, the thump of her tail.
    Then, with a disdainful air of the patrolman out for a more newsworthy crime, she turns head, shoulder, tail, and is off to another room.
    The beetle, forgotten, swims the air in circles on its back.

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