You stand outside the shower as you turn on the taps with one hand, and are relieved to see just plain hot water come out. Even if you thought the events that transpired last night was a dream, you can't help but be careful. As you shower, you are puzzled by the events of your dream. Even Freud would be having a hard time interpreting your dreams. Why had the blue latex cat been so friendly to you and had not tired to transform you like the wolf had to it? It's an unsettling thought, so you put it on the back burner of your mind as you finish showering.
After drying off and putting on clothes, you begin to head downstairs. Glad that it's a Saturday and that you have the day off, you decide you'll just run some errands today. You step off the bottom step, turn to see your living room, and stop in your tracks. There's an end table right next to your couch, and there are several scratch marks made up and down in the wood. Dribbling down the scratches is thick, syrupy blue liquid. You walk over, puzzled, and bend down. The scratches look like they were made by a cat, and, sniffing you discover the liquid smells like...
...latex.
You shake your head and blink. You dismiss the scratches and latex as a hallucination from hunger, as it's been over twelve hours since you ate last. Leaving the living room, you pass through the rounded archway that leads through the dining room to the kitchen. You enter your kitchen, snap on the lights, and see a mess. A few cupboards are open and ajar, with cans knocked out of them, thrown haphazardly around the room. There is tuna all over the counter near the sink, but it's spread around, as if it was lapped up by a cat, but couldn't quite get all of it. The can opener sits unused in it's drawer near the stove. All of the open cans are dented, like something hand pounded them against the countertop to open them.
You think back to the scratches and latex and the blue cat from the night before. The hairs on the back of your neck stand up as you begin to think that maybe, just maybe the events from last night hadn't been a dream. But then your realize there are a number of explanations. You did watch your neighbor's cat a few months ago while they went to Seattle for a vacation. Maybe it had scratched the end table without you knowing. And as for the mess with the tuna, well, in your cat-filled dreams, you had probably sleep-walked.
You hastily clean up the messy kitchen, wiping off the counters and throwing away the half-eaten cans of tuna. Your stomach rumbles loudly and reminds you that you haven't had breakfast yet. You open the fridge and reach for the opaque milk carton. For some reason, you've always drank your milk first rather than with a meal. You grab a tall glass from a cupboard and pour the milk while you stare out the window at your back yard. Your neighbors seem unusually quiet today, as the house behind yours is full of college kids blasting Theory of a Deadman and Hellyeah every morning before classes. Not today, however.
You finish pouring the milk and set the carton down, and, still looking out the window, raise the milk glass to your lips and take a big drink. The milk tastes all right enough, but there's something funny tasting about it day, as if the richness of it is almost, but not quite, masking a subtle flavor buried beneath. Chalking it up to old milk funk, you put the carton away and go to wash your glass. But something in your glass makes you stop in your tracks. The milk residue left in the bottom is a light blue color. That's not what milk is supposed to look like. Shaking your head in denial, you wash your glass and head out of the kitchen.