Hunt
The wind blows confidently into frostier mornings. My roommate and I wait three hours after sunrise before going outside, and try to make it in three hours before sundown; this is essential for warm fingers and steady moods. With this rule, jacket season can be reduced by two weeks on either end.
It was one o'clock pm when we came across the "Missing Baby" poster. Unlike you, we didn't assume it was a human baby because the poster was dominated with a picture of a cat with half a tail. According to this poster, Baby will respond to her name and comes if asked politely. My roommate and I decided not to store this information as fact, as it came from a cat enthusiast. All they do is lay in beds all day, covered in cat feces and piss, spewing lies about the capabilities of their cats.
My roommate and I shared some empathy for Baby. We couldn't imagine spending any amount of time anywhere close to darkness outside, let alone completely homeless. My roommate took a picture of the poster for future reference. Coincidentally, later in the day we happened upon a poster claiming "Found Cat". The picture provided was close enough to Baby (same colouring, half tail) to prompt us to call Baby's irresponsible owner. My roommate handled the call; I have limited weekday minutes.
"Hey, is this the owner of Baby? Have you found her yet?" he said. They responded quietly into his ear.
"Alright nice, have a good one." he said, then hung up.
She returned home on her own last week. That means this owner is not only so irresponsible that they lost their cat, once they found her, they didn't have the decency to tear down the irrelevant posters.
This lead us to the conclusion that the owner was also not in the mindset to identify their cat reliably. Maybe they took in a rabies-infested raccoon, who is greedily eating Baby's meals, shitting and pissing in the owner's bed, and enjoying pats from their surrogate, senile master.
All the while, Baby is a financial burden on those who found her. They could hardly afford an attractive found poster, let alone feeding and clothing this cat the way it has grown accustomed to. The man of the house decides to take matters into his own hands. After all, his mother said the ham can be substituted with any other protein you desire when crafting her famous ham and pea soup.
"Shhh", he said, "There's no need to meow now."
JACK LYTLE
Jack is a professional writer in training, but already is a seasoned unprofessional cook. He enjoys both activities equally, though one satisfies his soul, the other his stomach.