Terry The Magnificent: Part 2 of The Adventures of Moses Kincade

It wasn’t long before Moses made his way to bed.  He was pretty worn out from his experience earlier and frankly couldn’t face his cat, Terry the Magnificent, any longer.  Terry, or T for short, as Moses called him, was rather hungry and, being a picky eater, refused to eat the bread and milk Moses had put out for him in place of his normal cat food.  Terry sulked around the living room long after Moses had went to bed and eventually curled up on the couch to go to sleep.  Normally Terry would have slept with Moses but he felt it was best for their friendship that they both slept in different rooms for the evening.  This was not an uncommon occurrence though.  Whenever Moses and Terry had a disagreement, or Moses just forgot to bring home cat food, T would almost always sleep on the couch.  He felt it should be the other way around, but considering that Moses was kind enough to save him from a most certain death, he allowed him to keep his bed on nights such as these. 

            Terry never questioned his strange name.  He knew exactly how magnificent he was and was not ashamed to flaunt it.  Others often queried about his name though.  Moses would explain to them that he picked up his feline companion at an animal shelter mere days before he was going to be put to sleep.  Someone had abandoned him and after enough time spent in the pet penitentiary, Terry’s sentence was handed down to him.  As Moses was looking at all of the kittens, he saw Terry perched on a water bowl over all the other kittens in their cage.  His chest was out and his head was slightly cocked back.  Moses thought he looked very regal; like a painting that you might see of a member of a royal family, or Napoleon.  No matter what the royal family of choice, Moses and Terry the Magnificent immediately took to one another they had been best friends ever since.  Except when Moses forgot the cat food, obviously. 

            While Terry slept soundly on the couch, Moses was not resting so peacefully.  His dreams seemed to be on a CCTV loop of the debacle that was his encounter with Sarah that night.  No matter how many times he walked into the video store and tried to talk to her, each trip had the same end result; Moses running for his life out the door.  Some of the details changed.  One time he tripped and fell in front of her. A few different times he just stood there staring at her blankly, as if he was being interrogated, while she asked “Are you alright?”  The last one stood out from the rest though.  It seemed like this particular one was just as it had happened before, except this time he actually said hello to Sarah.  He was particularly impressed with himself for finally making some progress.  However, just as European Swallows do in the winter, everything went South quickly.  Just as he began to speak, Sarah turned and immediately burst out into uncontrollable laughter.  Moses then began to run away, just as expected. However, when he got to the door he could see his reflection, and he appeared to be wearing a very lovely light blue chiffon blouse; something that resembled a shirt that pirate might wear.  It only made things worse that his mauve ascot simply did not match.  Even a dreaming Moses knew that few things were more embarrassing than an ascot that didn’t match your blouse. 

         Moses woke up early the next morning and decided to run out to pick up a few things that weren’t mauve; or chiffon.  First on his list would be cat food.  He couldn’t stand to disappoint T two days in a row.  When Moses walked into Petco, who other but Ruth was standing at the first register smiling just as she was the day before.  “Back again, I see” she said.  Moses nodded to her and told her that he had forgotten to pick up cat food the day before.  As he walked through the store, he saw the television playing the same video that had interested him so much.  He looked at it for a second and then was on his way.  When Moses returned home, he was glad to see that Terry was still asleep on the couch.  He opened the bag and began to pour food into T’s bowl.  As soon as the very familiar clanking of cat food rang out, Terry raised his head and almost seemed to grin.  He knew he had won.