Where Is Olive?

Olive may appear in any place at any moment. She gnaws my feet as I nap and she hangs above my head as I do the dishes, prepared to face-hug at the slightest provocation. As invasive as Japanese knotweed, she squeezes into the sink while I wash my face and waves her claws under the bathroom door if I try to shut her out. While I kneel over a coffee table strewn beads and wire, Olive crouches between my calves. I wake up in the morning to Olive gazing down at me with a curious expression.

Olive is watching. Olive is always watching.

Not one surface of this apartment remains undefiled by her paws. Neither fruit bowl nor funnel nor open mouth is safe. She wants to penetrate the plastic boundaries of the water filter and curl herself up in the clammy reservoir like a catfish. Mortal illusions like “walls” and “window screens” and “impossibly small spaces” are beyond Olive’s conception, for her mind lives beyond the Matrix.

Poker-faced and twitchy-tailed, she stares at me on my tapping away on my laptop and swats my ankles with her paw. Olive wants to beat me into submission until I enjoy her illustrious company, but she will not win.