WESTWOOD—Local cat Fluffy Winship Lion the Fourth was in the process of his regularly scheduled licking session when his tongue stopped and the existential dread of his Sisyphean task filled his small feline form. “How could I have been so blind to reality? Every day I wake up and make like a good cat by dropping off fecal matter in the litter box and then I lounge about the house, ignoring those who sustain my existence by nutrition. And then, every evening, I proceed to lick myself clean. When will it end? When will I find a purpose in my life beyond licking myself clean? When will I understand what it means to be truly clean?”
The cat began to pace around the house as his owner watched TV and ate Doritos. “Everything in my life is a meaningless circle of things that add up to nothing. I spend at least an hour a day chasing a ball of yarn. My paws strike at the ball and seek to unravel it, but it never does,” McFlufferson hissed. “Oh god, what if it’s a metaphor? What if it’s a symbol of my search for meaning and purpose and how I never find anything but compulsively search because I don’t know anything else.” His owner walked past and McFlufferson meowed.
“Why do I meow? Is there a reason behind it? I cannot fathom one and yet I know there must be one,” as he arched his back. “Do I know? Or do I merely cling to this belief because if I did not the senseless of my existence would drive me mad?” He began to lick his fur again. “Oh god. Here I go. I can’t stop. And my fur will never be clean. I clean it and it gets dirty again. And then I clean because I can’t do anything else to stop the overwhelming existential angst that floods my veins.” Roommates later reported that Jared’s cat was behaving rather odd and perhaps was experimenting too heavily with catnip.
