Family Ties

He owns this family of cats - or they own him, however you like to see it.
They sleep, empty the food dish and fill the box.  He empties the box, fills the dish and wakes the cats, so the cycle can start over again. The sound of the cat flap is his daily weather forecast  – they come crawling through it before it gets too nasty.

He named them all, adopted some neighbourhood cats along the way. He knows their stories better than their original owners did. There's Franky, the one with the tear in his ear – he got it from the dog across the street he loved to tease. He still does it, Franky never learns. Minka is all soft fur and begging eyes – he can never refuse to pet her if she wants it. Grant always makes a big appearance and if Killer is already there he'd better make sure they don't see each other. They have this never ending rival war going on.

His days are determined by the cats – he prefers their reign a lot to that of the ticking clock. On a lazy afternoon when all of them just lie in the sun lazily he tends to do the same. He sometimes wonders if he became partly cat, too -  but this is nonsense, he is nothing but an overgrown and overly attached can opener to them - or at least so he tells himself, but Minka brushing along his legs begs to differ. And although Grant is big enough to fight for his food anywhere and hates his constant efforts of keeping peace between him and Killer, he always comes back. Killer tends to lay tons of dead mice in front of his house despite the fact he always tells him not to – it can't be helped it's just his way of showing affection. Last but not least Franky wouldn't know a better place to get patched up after another clash with the neighbourhood dogs.

In a strange cat-like non-verbal way, they patch up his wounds, too. They comfort him by touch or just being around, giving him the feeling that somehow the world is still in check, giving him the feeling he has a reason, a right to be there. Sure, they might scratch and bite sometimes, but those wounds heal easily – unlike others.