The Cat Named Guns

There's this orange cat that lives in a house built on farmland. This house is his second (maybe third) home. His age is indeterminate, but he spends most of his day doing nothing but lying around. He might sleep in the middle of an empty living room. He might investigate the happenings in the backyard of the house across the street (the one that doesn't get mowed regularly; whatever could be happening there). Or he might sneak up and gaze suspiciously at children waiting for a school bus at the bottom of the street for an hour. If nothing of the sort, he would probably go back to the house and sleep in some other, more interesting, empty room.

The people who live in the house think he is a perfectly acceptable little kitty. He's greeted with smiles and love and cutesy refrains of his name whenever he enters the room his people are currently occupying. When he's done being with his people, he leaves through a hole carved in a wall of the house provided for the comings and goings of him and the other kitties that live there. When Guns leaves, his people know that they have nothing to worry about, that he will soon return as surely as all the other kitties.

But one night not long ago, to the dismay of one of the people driving home after class, a dead orange kitty was spotted on the side of the road not far from the house. As all the people in the house came out to investigate the site of the accident it was concluded, after a few sad moments, that it was indeed their orange Guns who had perished.

Having many animals over the years had emotionally prepared the people of the house for a night such as this one. As the hole was dug in the backyard, they were careful not to strike the graves of the other animals who had once been residents of the house. After some solemn words were made for their good little cat, and his remains were peacefully laid to rest, the people went inside for their solemn shots of tequila, making melancholy jokes that their precious orange cat might stroll back inside after an hour's time like the heartbreak of the evening had never occurred.

These jokes proved strangely prophetic when later that night, as one of the people left their bedroom for a trip to the bathroom, their beloved orange cat was laying in the hallway looking back up at them as he would have done on any other unremarkable night.

The identity of the orange cat buried in their backyard is still a mystery.