pads

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	It’s a game of hunt: an acting arrangement of chords with a lurking melody stalking words—words that could alter & progress, or kill the idea. You hear them but they can’t be found.

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	Perceived writers receive plenty of blank journals, sketchbooks & lined or squared pads as go-to gifts. There are also ones that the perceived writers impulse-buy for themselves in moments of perceived potential inspiration. None are wasted, though — there’s a routinely sudden need to try & rephrase a mania.
One holiday years ago, a three-pack of Kate Spade branded notepads from an outlet mall sales outing were gifted into the cache.
They were initially assigned strategic designations around the house in case of a passing mind-doodle — one dropped at a home studio music stand, one set with utensils for general chewing while at the dinner table & one laid out on a nightstand to scratch illegibly in the dark.
Pages were noted with unrelated passing thoughts & detached word combos, leaving most about half blank.

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	A cat lives here that lives to fetch.
It knows the sound of paper turning as notepad scribbles are reviewed from a comfy chair, coveted by cat & non-cat alike, in the free-range area of the house.
The call quickly turns primal. A pounce lands. A pad is pawed. A corner is gnawed.
Kate Spade is the prey.
Survival depends on ingenuity. You can buy time with a ripped piece.
Scrunch the note into a ball.
The cat hears the crumpling & crouches into ambush position with a pre-launch butt-wiggle.
Lob.
A supersonic smear of black fur skids across the room then vanishes around a corner with a slap shot.
Hear the cat from the next room, attacking your words.
Go back to work on the pads. The cat returns without the note & looks you in the eyes. Tear another. Throw.
Review faster between sallies. Tear again.
Try & decipher the night writing portions. Unable. Tear & ball the whole page.
There’s a thud in the next room, then silence. Rise to investigate.
There should be a dozen note balls on the way, but nothing—not even the cat.
Go back to the comfy chair — a single ball at the feet, half-opened as if the cat lost interest in the writing. 

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	Flatten & review the toy — a random record unfolds from traveling around the country a few years ago as the lockdown ended.
The alarmed writer reports that there's no memory of ever seeing them in the years before the void, but suddenly, they're everywhere: something called Noodles & Co. They must’ve spread as well during the pandemic.
Recall that an inevitable investigative visit to one of them on that trip ended without ordering—
an issue of broth.

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	The word-hunt ends without a takedown.
Noodles & Co won’t be expressed in song.
Scrunch & throw.
Wonder if any of the lost thoughts will be unearthed someday under a bed or in a corner, still balled up with revelations when you're no longer around.
The cat tears back into the room & it’s in a killin’ mood.