A realization at 6:17 am

I sneezed. It was one of those big loud ones you feel coming like it has an early warning system in place. The kind that sometimes, despite the warning, don’t actually do anything and you feel weird the rest of the day.

I screwed up my face in the “sneeze imminent” way. (Is there a word for that? I feel like there should be a word for that.)

The cat, who had been on the armrest beside me, leapt over to her tower. (I heard her land but didn’t actually see the jump because of pre-sneeze face contortions.)

I sneezed.

I opened my eyes. And looked the cat.

She was hunched on the middle shelf of the tower watching me with this look of horror and distain.

And I understood why cats would be lousy service animals for people with seizures, etc.