Written by Lisa Beebe
Photo: © Depositphotos.com/websubstance

 

He entered the kitchen to find her standing in front of the open refrigerator, knocking things off the shelves and onto the floor.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

“Making some changes. There’s no room for my stuff.”

“The humans let you use the fridge? That’s cool.” He paused, realizing what he’d just said. “Yeah, it’s cool, ’cause it’s a fridge, right? Cool? Fridge?”

“The humans do not LET me do anything. I do what I want.” She eyed the top shelf, and extended her front right paw as high as she could. Even standing on her back legs, she wasn’t tall enough to reach it.

“Cool,” he said again, giggling to himself. She never laughed at his jokes, even when they were really good, like that one.

He began nosing an orange across the linoleum. It reminded him of a tennis ball, but he knew the orange wasn’t a toy. He picked it up carefully, so his teeth wouldn’t puncture its skin, and placed it back on the bottom shelf of the fridge. “Orange,” he thought to himself, and then remembered why he liked the word.

“Orange you glad we’re friends?” he asked her. “Orange you glad I’m helping?” He looked at her face, expecting at least a smile.

“Get that out of here,” she said, pawing the orange back onto the floor. Then she reached for a head of lettuce and rolled that off the shelf, too.

“Hey,” he said.

She ignored him.

“Hey,” he repeated, “Maybe if you ask the humans for permission, they’ll ‘lettuce’ use the fridge? Let us? Lettuce!”

“Stop it,” she said. “I already told you, I do what I want. I don’t want to share the fridge with them – or you. I don’t want these stupid vegetables stinking up my stuff.”

As she slid more food off the shelves, he picked up a loose baby carrot. He chewed on it for a minute before breaking into a goofy grin. With bits of carrot in his teeth, he said, “You don’t carrot all about me! ‘Carrot all’ is like ‘care at all,’ get it?”

She didn’t respond. Instead, she launched herself onto the top shelf of the fridge, knocking a half gallon of milk and a jug of orange juice to the floor. The milk began to leak. Next, she pushed a carton of eggs out, followed by a few blocks of cheese, a bag of parsley, a jar of spicy mustard, and a takeout container of leftover fried rice.

When the fridge was empty, she jumped down. She went into the bathroom and returned a moment later with a large dead roach, which she put in the crisper. She disappeared again and came back with a dead mouse. Holding it in her mouth, she leapt onto the top shelf. She placed the mouse at the very back, in the coldest part of the fridge.

Then, she stretched herself out on the glass, with her nose almost touching the little gray body. “You are going to be so fresh and delicious at dinnertime,” she whispered.

Down below, he nosed at a few leafy green stalks. “Dinner-thyme? Like the herb? Thyme?”

She looked at him, and shook her head. “No, you idiot. No. And for god’s sake, that’s parsley.”

“Parsley,” he echoed, racking his brain for a pun. “Parsley…”

“You’re driving me insane. Go lay down. You need to chill.” She turned back to the dead mouse.

Surprised at her sharp tone, he took a quick step back. Without his body holding the refrigerator door open, it fell shut, sealing her inside.

“I need to chill? More like, you need to chill.” He knew she couldn’t hear him through the fridge’s insulated walls, but he said it again in a deeper voice for dramatic effect. “Maybe you need to chill… in the fridge.”

He sniffed the pile of food she’d thrown on the floor, stepped around it, and walked into the living room. There, he climbed into his bed, circled around three times, and settled in for a good, long nap.

***

Lisa Beebe lives in Los Angeles, where she sometimes talks to the ocean. Her work has appeared in Indiana Review, Eleven Eleven, Switchback, and Psychopomp, among others. Find her online at lisabeebe.com.