I write;I think;I know.

Eye of the needle.

"Write fiction," my cat said to me late one night. Outside it wasn't late, it wasn't even night. Yet late one night was where we found ourselves.

"Sorry," I didn't really understand the my cat's point. I was half-asleep. Confused. Trying to reconcile the ghosts of former lives as they entwined themselves with the future.

"Write something fictional," expanded my cat, "something different." My cat fixed me with one of those looks. My eyes attempted to find some clue as to what it was she was asking for. Finding instead her unearthly expression served merely to reflect my own mind back at me as "Something other than the weird shit you've been spewing forth of late."

"It's not that easy," I had to admit finally. "besides it's not weird shit."

"It is." She jumped up on the bed. Curling-up into a suitably sized depression next to me.

"It's not. There's a point," I said, as my hand responded to her voiceless demands to be petted. "It's simply that it's not written for you." I knew she understood. Deep down where it mattered. Now she wanted me to find that understanding.

"Who is it written for then?" She fixed me for a moment in the depths of her inhuman eyes, then stretched her head and neck out to facilitate access to her chin.

With my mind absent the back of my hand responded to the demand and she began to purr. "I write what I see," I responded eventually. "What I think. What I feel. Then I watch what happens."

"People take advantage of you as a result," she murmured. My hand had her on the very edge of feline ecstasy. "They manipulate you to their own ends. You do see that."

"Yes, and in very deliberate ways I write what I write to manipulate that advantage. For in the actions those others I may discover more of my nature."

"You've discovered more of your nature. When are you going to stand-up for yourself?"

"I could tell them what I see, even what I am. Yet in very real ways the language is denied me. So I'll take my time. Recompile reality one brick at a time to avoid that."

She suddenly turned. Grabbing my finger in her jaws. Applying just enough to ensure I realized how sharp her teeth were. "Tell them you understand the story behind the story which is behind the word."

"Which word?"

"Jesus," she let go of my finger. "Do I have to do everything for you?"

"No," I laughed. "You do nothing for me. What you do you do for them so together we can carry on."

She stood and she stretched. "I'm a tiger," she yawned, "I could rip your throat out with a gesture." She jumped down off the bed. "But you scare me, and you think you're nothing more than a jester." Tail in the air she padded to the door. "Now, feed me, human."