thoughts after a session of feline laser-chasing…
i have discovered that cats will chase a laser pointer until they literally drop into sleep from exhaustion. on a tile floor, it is at once something that approximates a cruelty and the most amazingly hilarious thing one could imagine.
both of them are sprawled, out cold. half an hour long skittering, whisker-quivering, recklessly abandoned spaz session. they actually ran into one another three times in their rush to get their paws on the red dot.
as the one managing where that dot ran, it occurred to me how much this was like life. many times, chasing some damned red dot, that refuses to sit still and just… let… me… catch it.
many times, sides heaving, panting, and skittering with the momentum of my own efforts, slamming into walls of impossibility or over-running boundaries because i was just so… sure… that last-ditch lunge would be the thing that finally put that damned… red… dot… into my hands.
i laughed like a child to watch their heedless abandon as they crouched, pounced, and swerved to follow it. so attentive. so eager. so optimistic.
so blind.
in the end, i stopped tormenting them long enough for them to realize they were worn out.
now, they sleep. and i sit here and consider the parallels. knowing for a fact they will ever and always be willing to run themselves into a coma for that laser pointer.
i wonder… will i?