The Writer’s Cat
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PART ONE
The Writing Brigade / An Unlikely Alliance
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Published: October 4, 2025
Last Updated: October 4, 2025
Chapter 1:
"Here’s the situation"
Eat. Sleep. Do her job.
For Dot, this was what life was all about. The three pillars upon which everything else was built.
You needed energy to actually do things. Whether it was dry, crunchy bits in a bowl, or wet gourmet deliciousness served on a paw-shaped plate—food was food. It was an absolute necessity.
Then there was the inevitable follow-up: sleeping. That included napping, dozing, and everything in between. One needed to digest food after all. What better way to pass that time than to find a nice small box to curl up in or a sun patch to flop down onto?
To be clear, Dot was very much a cat.
But beyond eating and sleeping, every feline individual needed something to strive for. And if life wasn’t about chasing a stray piece of string, then what indeed was it about?
Yes, Dot, notable for her distinct black-and-white splotched fur, actually had a job to do. This was because Dot was more than just a cat. She was, in fact, a writer’s cat. She lived and worked alongside a human person, specifically one called a writer. This young man named PJ was the one who had told her that while she hadn’t necessarily signed up for the job, she was indeed a part of his writing team.
Unfortunately, her job description was a little unclear. But she wouldn’t let a thing like that stop her from being a contributing cat to society. She was sure that figuring things out was simply another part of the job.
Dot was currently on a desk, stretched out, staring at the ceiling of her home as she thought about things. She had just eaten and slept in a corner of the big human box called a studio apartment. Workwise, she was trying to figure out what she should focus on. She stretched and rolled over, flopping over onto her tummy, and eventually turned right-side up again.
It was hard to focus because she was getting distracted by PJ the human. This was her coworker and writer colleague. He was currently stretching in his sweater and jeans. He looked downright silly as he occasionally paused to adjust his bold glasses and his fancily styled hair. She didn’t understand how all this awkward movement was supposed to help with writing. But there had to be some reason, surely.
“Now hold on,” her roommate in question said. He put both his hands above his head as high as he could again and winced.
“Is this correct?” PJ continued. “You stretch all the time. And I’m pretty sure that stretching is a great way to warm up—physically and mentally—to prepare ourselves for the work ahead. Does this look right, however? Constructive criticism is welcome. Although I’m sure it’s mostly correct.”
Dot wasn’t much out of kittenhood yet and hadn’t seen many humans stretch, if ever, but she had a feeling that doing so in jeans wasn’t ideal. If she could talk, that would have been the first thing she pointed out.
“I don’t know if you meant to role model this as a writing warmup,” PJ said, continuing his stretches. The young man wasn’t even looking at her despite asking for advice. He was just standing there on the rug, tilted over, with one arm draped over his head. “But sometimes, as a true creative, you need to take inspiration from the world around you.”
Dot pulled herself up to a sitting position on the desk and sat on top of the laptop she had found. She blinked and stared around as she thought more about her role in this. Maybe she had subconsciously thought that PJ the human needed to stretch to help their team succeed. Yes, perhaps she meant to help.
The man kept speaking, looking to her for approval regarding his stretching form. Now, no self-respecting cat would be so inelegant about their stretches, but she wanted to be supportive.
Dot settled on a neutral look and sort of looked away.
“What? What is that look for? Is my stretching bad?” PJ asked, hopping up from where he had been seated with legs outstretched, trying to touch his toes quite inadequately, making it only to his knees. Then, he paused and looked down at his sweater. It was knitted, beige, and had a very prominent blue feather on it. “Or is it my new clothes? No, that can’t be it. I specifically picked this sweater out because it had a writerly feel to it. Look, it has a quill on it.”
Dot couldn’t respond in words to any of this—she was a cat after all. She did, however, think the sweater was a little over the top. She also had several tips ready for how to correct PJ’s stretching form with no way to share them.
The cat stretched out a paw, looked past PJ, and yawned.
For a moment, the two of them just continued existing around each other in the small studio room—with Dot on the desk in one corner, and the young man on the rug. Dot also considered that there was probably food somewhere in the kitchen on the other side of the apartment.
“You’re just going to give me the silent treatment?” PJ asked the cat, frowning. “That’s very mature.”
The cat looked at PJ, trying to figure out what he meant. She was still learning what sarcasm was.
“Look, I’m the writer and you’re the cat,” PJ said. “It’s just us. We’re going to need to work together if we really want me to reach my full potential.”
Dot stared at PJ, from atop her perch on his closed laptop, and could tell that what he was saying was important to him. Still, she didn’t know what to do about the fact that she was still learning about the writing process, or that she thought he was a horrible stretcher. Or that she couldn’t talk.
“You are supposed to be the final piece of the puzzle. Don’t you understand?” PJ asked, actually looking for an answer. When she didn’t respond right away, however, he blew out a breath and put a hand against his specifically styled head of hair.
“I moved in here and I got a cat. I followed the script almost exactly. As my cat, you are the steadfast support to me, the undiscovered writer. Think of it like this…”
Dot quirked her head at the man, listening intently.
“I just came up with this analogy, but I think it works,” he said. “I’m essentially like an inventor. You know, a creator. Someone who makes things.”
The cat tilted her head in the other direction as she thought about that, imagining the man as an inventor.
“And you’re my assistant,” PJ said, forging ahead with his analogy. “Yes, exactly, you are helping me, the inventor, create something great. I shall make something magnificent. You shall assist me.”
Dot looked at PJ with big eyes, processing this new definition of her role.
“Meow?” she asked.
“Yes, that’s right,” PJ answered, nodding. “You are my assistant. And I’m going to make something great. It’s pretty simple.”
The two-toned cat was a little confused. Was she filling two roles? As both a writer’s cat and an inventor’s assistant? No, that couldn’t be right.
Unfortunately, this was also when a clanging sound and rustling came from the other side of the front door to their apartment. It sounded interesting and Dot’s head swiveled in that direction.
“Oh, you know, that must be the mail delivery person,” PJ said, nodding to himself. “Perfect. I should really say hello.”
Dot immediately scampered after PJ, happy to also investigate the goings-on outside.
“No, Dot, you stay inside,” PJ said, seriously, looking down at the cat as she stood ready to bound out and explore. “This is your world, the inside place.”
“Meow!”
“No, only humans get to go outside,” PJ responded, giving her a stern look, “Well, except if you have to go to the vet again.”
Dot froze at that, and then quickly stepped back over to the small table in the dining corner of their apartment. She quickly hopped up and glared at the writer, even as she curled into a ball, being just a bit defiant as PJ walked unconcerned toward the front door. He appeared quite satisfied with his masterful pet ownership ability. She, meanwhile, could only watch as he went alone to open the door to the “clang, clang” sounds and intermittent rustlings still happening outside.
“Oh, hello,” PJ said, leaning out into the hallway. “Yes, you there. Hello?”
Dot peeked over at the entryway. She was wary after the mention of the vet, but observed carefully as the door was shut. This left her with just her imagination to keep her company, thoughts of her job, and maybe some back-and-forth dialogue filtering in from outside.
All cats have a powerful imagination. And when given nothing else to do, they sometimes let that imagination run wild. Here is a peek into the world that Dot imagined when she was bored and left alone in the apartment, a world where she could be a different being altogether. She could even imagine what it was like to be a human…
Humans exist in many worlds, or at least that is what they would like to believe. And in one of those worlds—a world covered in a wild wilderness and an overbearing atmosphere—those humans had once long ago split into the nomads and the settlers.
Settlers did not travel. Nomads thought that the settlers were weird. They didn’t talk to each other much. End of story. That story also marked the beginning of another. One that started with a settler named Dottie, who was currently blinking her eyes at the ominous sky overhead.
The woman lived in a land covered in dark clouds and populated by a stubborn set of people. She was just one of the many inhabitants currently on the outskirts of the Bustling Town of Urk, a place famous for the invention of the door. They were all quite proud of that creation, although Dottie was technically from the neighboring town of Rot, known for the window.
The nomads of the world didn’t have a name for either of these towns in particular, as they lived in a totally separate province and had no need for these places of congealing humanity. Sometimes, Dottie was inclined to agree that the towns of Urk and Rot weren’t that particularly appealing.
The young woman in her large hooded cloak sat up, idly thinking about how the life of the nomads was much more of her style. She yawned and stretched atop the wooden structure upon which she had been napping.
It was a wagon.
A wagon may seem like an ordinary thing to some, but where Dottie was from, this was fairly uncommon. It wasn’t just uncommon—it was actually the first of its kind. An anomaly. And in the Bustling Town of Urk, it had been called something else.
What had the town council dubbed this again? Dottie scratched her chin in thought, thinking back to the public tribunal she had witnessed. It had featured a hapless inventor in the biggest wide-brimmed hat she had ever seen. It even had a fantastically large feather stuck into the top of it. He had been on trial for creating an…“abomination.”
That is what they had called it. An abomination.
That day, the dark atmosphere enveloping the town of Urk seemed alive as a public tribunal of inventors turned their judgmental eyes on this man. He claimed it was doing the town proud by building on their founding invention of the door, as his structure had so many doors built into it.
He had claimed that in a city known for doors, that this room should be lauded as an achievement. Why? It was a room with doors—and indeed the senior tribunal of inventors had initially liked that take. Everyone loved doors in the Town of Urk.
But it also had wheels. He tried to explain that it had wheels so it could carry the majesty of its many doors to the outside world. This is where his argument fell flat. He added wheels. For travel. Travel of all things!
It was as though he had forgotten that all things travel were terrible. Anything that involved overland movement was abhorrent above all things. Only the nomads of the world did that, and the settlers who founded places like the Bustling Town of Urk absolutely avoided any kind of travel.
And this is why the man, Pono Jefferson, was promptly exiled in front of the whole town. His wagon, too.
It was funny to the woman on the cart, bundled in her cloak, that there was a functional issue with the invention as well. Namely, that the man had no way of pulling the room on wheels. Because it wasn’t hitched to anything. There was somewhere to put a horse or donkey or something—but with nothing there at the moment, the wagon wasn’t going anywhere.
Dottie chuckled at the thought and then turned her eyes over toward where the inventor himself was wandering around in his big, plumed hat, trying to solve this issue. She could see him pestering anyone who would listen for some sort of creature to pull his cart. He didn’t seem to be having much luck.
Honestly, she was impressed he was able to convince a surly bunch of men and women to push the cart this far past the town walls and into the outskirts of Urk. Even considering the immense sum he was forced to pay, it seemed that it was lucky he had found anyone to do the work for him at all.
She had, of course, also forced Jefferson, a man from some wealthy family, to pay her an exorbitant fee when she agreed to be his bodyguard. Supposedly, her job was to help him get out of town safely and to wherever he ended up wanting to go. Dottie had considered whether the gold was worth being lumped in with an exile, but she was already an outsider and didn’t mind the trouble that came with accepting the gig. It also helped that she was getting a hefty payday for basically sitting around a lot.
The wagon’s lone guard was soon interrupted in her thoughts by some loud thumping against the side of the vehicle, startling the musing woman. Dottie peered over at a couple of individuals who all had some leather armor on and metallic bits covering their heads. One of them, a reedy fellow, banged a stick against the rear trunk. It was a storage container at the back of the vehicle that was covered by a door and had knickknacks tied to the top of it. It handled the impact quite well.
“Oy!” the reedy fellow said up to her. His outfit displayed the door insignia of the town of Urk, thus making him an employee of the town. “This is that criminal vehicle, is it not! We’ve been dispatched to make sure it’s destroyed. It’s already supposed to be out of here.”
“Not my problem,” Dottie said, yawning. “I’m not the one who made this thing. I’m just the guard.”
Reed, as Dottie had decided to call the reedy fellow, squinted at her. “You’re that weirdo from the town of Rot. The one they call Rottie!”
“It’s Dottie, actually,” she said, sniffing and dusting off her shoulders. “I’m just supposed to stay with this cart-thing for now. See, I’m guarding it, and this is my weapon of choice.”
She picked up the rake, with its dull tines and wooden handle, that had been lying next to her, as though that explained things.
All of the town employees stepped back, intimidated by the gardening tool. Reed, however, wasn’t put off for long, and after getting a tighter grip on the short stick he had brought along, he shouted up at her.
“You can’t scare us! I should put you in jail for aiding a criminal!”
“Whoa! We have a misunderstanding,” she said, putting her rake down slowly so as not to scare them anymore. She waved at them. “I’m really not that involved.”
“You threatened us!” one of Reed’s friends shouted back, more confident now that the rake had been put away. “Why should we listen to you, Rottie? Huh?”
Dottie raised an eyebrow at the things coming out of these people’s mouths and decided this was too much of a hassle for her to deal with. Instead, she stood up on the top of the wagon, with its many doors. There were two to enter the covered part of the wagon, along with other doors covering the hidden compartments in the seats and the heavy wooden one built into the big trunk at the rear. Jefferson really went all out with that particular feature.
“Hello! Inventor man!” Dottie yelled, waving her arms, trying to get the town exile’s attention as he continued getting jostled in the crowd. “They’re going to take your wagon away. Do you hear me! This isn’t part of my job!”
The feather in the crowd turned toward her.
“Yeah, you! Jefferson! Pono Jefferson! They want to take your cart thing!” Dottie yelled again before feeling tired and plopping back down. She looked at Reed and the woman standing next to him, their expressions mean and threatening. Or maybe they were just hungry. Regardless, she decided to explain why no one should be upset at her.
“There, I helped.”
The frowns deepened on the faces looking at her, which didn’t seem like a good sign, so she spoke loudly to Inventor Jefferson once more: “You should probably get a move on! If we don’t leave now, well... They want to take the cart. Or destroy it. I don’t really know.”
“What, no!” a strangled cry went up from under the feather that Dottie had been talking at. “Out of my way, you! Oh, sorry. Ah!”
The hat went down for a moment as some shoving occurred in the crowd of people he had been walking through.
“No, no, I didn’t mean that! Wait—”
There was a scuffle as several people in the crowd took offense to the man causing them trouble.
“Sorry, I said, sorry!” the out-of-breath voice continued. “And you, my guard! Protect the wagon with your life! I’m coming back!”
The place that the cat had thought up was a simple one in her mind, of people and roads and dust and storms. But the cat shook herself away from her imagined world for a moment as things were happening in the apartment…
A furball of black and white flopped over and stretched out on the dining room table. The fluffy thing, the cat named Dot, looked all around, and then back at the front door to the apartment. She was just trying to listen in on the conversation that she could make out from the hallway.
“I don’t think you understand how serious this endeavor is,” PJ’s voice shared.
Dot dropped off the table and went sniffing toward the door. She could try to help the writer out if she had a better idea of what was going on out there. It certainly sounded like he needed assistance.
PJ’s dramatic statement was left hanging in the air with no response. There was the ongoing thump of something getting slid into the wall—specifically the sound of someone depositing packages or mail into the wall-mounted mail slots out there—but that was all.
Dot flipped upside down and pawed at the door to see if it helped her get to the pair having a chat without her.
“Writing is a serious matter, I’ll say it again,” PJ said. “And I’m actually a professional writer. For the most part. I think a lot of people would pay more attention to a real writer.”
“That’s possible,” someone responded. Thinking offhand, Dot thought it sounded like a respectable person, some woman perhaps with more life experience than PJ. A potential mentor who could help him out somehow. “But I’m more interested in doing a good job than hearing about your writing.”
Dot’s eyes widened at the rebuttal, but she could respect someone wanting to do a good job.
“I’m not quite sure how to take that,” PJ said, his tone question-like. “How can you not care? Here I am being so kind as to share my life’s mission and talking about my hopes and dreams and qualifications.”
“Just doing my job,” she said. “And I like to be efficient. Listening slows me down.”
“I even told you I have a cat now.”
“Yes, I don’t understand why that was important.”
Dot the cat rolled over a couple of times and scratched at the door, jiggling it back and forth a little.
“Listen, that’s her now. Can you hear her scratching?” PJ said, as his feet stepped around the paneled hallway. “I do have a cat. And I’ve had her for at least a month. So, it’s not a random cat I’m talking about or something I made up. She’s real.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t believe you,” the other voice said. A clang resounded on the other side of the wall, followed by some clicks and a satisfying thwick. “I just don’t understand why having a cat was worth mentioning.”
“What do you mean?” PJ asked, perplexed. “All great writers have cats.”
Silence greeted this proclamation.
“That’s why I got one in the first place.”
“Meow!” Dot said from her side of the door.
“See, a cat, clearly,” PJ said with a little more energy.
Dot sat up and looked at the door with intensity. This was one of the most exciting things that had happened in her new home.
“Wait, look,” PJ said, taking some steps closer to the apartment. Dot watched with more excitement as the door opened fully. She was surprised, though, when PJ unceremoniously scooped her up and brought her into the hallway. “It’s Dot. That’s what she was called before, and I didn’t change it.”
Dot found herself in the air looking at a suntanned older woman in a postal service cap and a uniform with a nametag patch that read “Cooper.” The cat blinked a couple of times as she properly met the apathetic person who had been in conversation with PJ.
She also took in her first clear view of the hallway, as her previous excursions involved being carried in a crate on the way to the vet. Taking it all in, this was a much better experience by comparison. They were in a well-kept hallway with a glass door leading to the outside world. Cooper, the mail person, was standing by some tin-grey mailboxes set into the wall above a decrepit, droopy, and possibly dead potted plant. That was about it.
Cooper sighed and then readjusted her postal bag on its strap over her shoulder and fixed her hat.
“Look, if you want to write, write,” Cooper said. “I just deliver your mail. It’s a simple working relationship.”
“But you could be an enthusiastic member of my support network. I think that’s fair…Cooper is it?” PJ asked. “I’m Pono Jefferson, but since I feel like we are becoming friends, I’ll let you call me PJ.”
“Your name is on your mail—but, yes, I am Lily Cooper from the postal service,” the woman said, responding as she turned away and walked toward the door. “It’s just Cooper though.”
Cooper looked back and tipped her hat at him and the cat in his stretched arms as she said a form of goodbye. “Have a good day.”
“But—” PJ said, continuing on even as he was left alone in the middle of his sentence, the door shutting in front of him, “—I have a cat?”
“Meow?” Dot chimed in.
“How is this not making sense to anyone?” PJ asked aloud. “Alright, Dot, let’s go back inside.”
“Meow…”
Now that nothing interesting was happening outside of the apartment, Dot was starting to get bored and uncomfortable. She kicked at the air to get PJ to put her down, who finally dropped her onto the floor with little grace or skill.
“This didn’t go nearly to plan,” PJ said, following the cat back inside with his mail, which was just one advertisement for vacuums.
Dot scampered around on her paws and blinked curiously at PJ, her ears flicking back and forth a little.
“So, what’s your plan, cat? You should be thinking of ways to help me write,” PJ said, observing her as she tried to look cute and cuddly.
“Look, here’s the situation,” he added. “We can’t just sit around and wait for things to happen. Even getting my mail person on board seems like it’ll take some continuous effort. So, we’ll need to work extra hard and you seem to be taking a more lackadaisical approach to all this.”
The cat looked back at him, whiskers trembling now.
“Okay, I’ll explain it again, so focus for a second,” he said, sitting down on the floor to have a candid conversation with her, waving his vacuum advertisement in the air as he talked. “If I don’t write and if a certain cat doesn’t support me properly, then I won’t be able to write my big article and get paid. Or become successful. Which means no nice apartment for any of us, and no more fancy treats.”
Dot blinked, wondering how she could be a better part of the team. She was trying her hardest from her point of view, but she wasn’t a quitter and would learn from this feedback. She seemed to be a pivotal part of PJ’s writing operations after all.
“In summary, you are partly to blame for us not having enough writing work done,” PJ said, pointedly looking at her. “And for not being as convincing with Cooper earlier. I was sure I did nothing wrong, and a cute pet should have made it easier for people to root for me.”
“Meow,” Dot said, wilting at the stern look that PJ was giving her.
“I assume you were not being as likeable and friendly as you could have been,” PJ said, shaking his head. “So, something to work on. Everyone needs a support network, and you should be helping me build one.”
Dot mewled and rolled over onto her back, trying to show that she could indeed be cute. The man just shook his head, sharing “Well, it’s a bit late now, isn’t it?” and turned around to go into the kitchen.
The black-and-white cat rolled back up to her feet and then steadily plodded after the human with a resolution to work harder. She reassured herself that she would figure out her job eventually.
She also took the human going over the kitchen as good news, as that was where the cat food was located. It did feel like a good time to visit the food bowl and balance out her daily routine with some eating.