Seafood Delight
Warm, humid air pressed against Karyn's face, and a weight with four distinctive pillars bore into her chest and abdomen. She heaved opened her eyes. Two ovals of yellow-green light stared back at her. Groaning, Karyn shoved Lima onto the floor, and crawled out of bed to feed the cat.
Lima was already sitting on her table in the kitchen when Karyn arrived.
"You would look less impatient if you knew how much I went through just now," she grumbled at the feline.
Indeed, it had been quite a journey from the other side of the apartment. Karyn had first collided with the hard but smooth wood of the bedroom door in defiance of turning on the bedroom light. Holding her pounding forehead, she then had staggered out into the hallway, the course fibers of the carpet scrubbing against the bottom of her bare feet as she shuffled onward. As she approached the end of the hallway, her little toe painfully rediscovered the cold, metallic resistance of the plant stand she had rearranged the night before. Karyn finally managed to hobble into the kitchen.
Eyes closed, she flipped on the light, gradually allowing herself to adjust to its blinding luminescence. Lima blinked indifferently.
"Or maybe you wouldn't."
She shuffled over to one of the cabinets, her feet temporarily reshaping the crinkly linoleum. She opened it, reached inside, and grabbed a can. Lima's ears perked at the sound of the can opener, licking her lips with her small rough tongue.
Karyn grimaced at the smell of the "Seafood Delight," wincing as she squeezed the can, allowing the slimy, foul-smelling gravy-it was all Lima would eat-to ooze over her fingers and onto the saucer. She could picture the fish wriggling between her fingers, unable-or unwilling-to hold their slippery bodies.
She placed the saucer on Lima's table and washed her hands.
"I hope you're happy," Karyn mumbled to the contented cat as she wandered back down the hall to her bedroom. Lima lapped in reply.
Finding herself uneventfully returned to her bedside, Karyn collapsed onto the firm, but elastic welcome of her bed, ready to get those last few moments of rest before she was required to be awake.
Her alarm chose that moment to go off.