My Cardboard Balcony

Seeing-Eye Cat by Belinda Roddie My tabby was lost in a guide dogs center - not blind, just lost. A worker loved him, raised him up to be a seeing- eye cat, on a leash and everything. He got so big he could rival a Corgi, but everyone else thought the whole thing was mad for so many different reasons. But now he's my cat. I don't go out much. The darkness is very calm for me, and the scruffy fur is my therapy as I listen to the television set, my tabby nestled against my knee, his paw on the remote in case I want him to change the channel.

"Are you real?" The little red man looked blanky back at me. His top hat was smoldering with stardust. His tailcoat was spun out of cosmic satin. The cane was a musical baton that spread symphonies across the space, a curved treble clef built out of dust and sound. "Madam," he said to me in a sing-song voice, "if I wasn't real, would your dancing truly be as riveting to your soul?"