Do you remember the night Captain Mittens didn’t come home?

***

For nine months, he lived by the clock – out at dawn, back at dusk. You were five. Your sing-song call could have summoned anything, not just a cat. When I tried – Captain Mittens! – it fell flat. Still, you laughed, and he came, rattling over the fence, ginger and white, expecting food.

One week, we tested different names for fun: Fat Face Tiddles! Ding Dong Didger! Hat Stand Sausage!

Every time, he came, with a look that said, ‘You called?’ Each time, you collapsed into laughter.

That night, you called until your voice cracked. We checked under cars, through hedges, over fences. Asked strangers if they’d seen him. We only gave up when darkness fell.

At home, I tucked you in, your cheeks wet. I said cats are free spirits, and worrying only makes our tummies ache. You said you understood. Still, you crept into my bed, fidgeting like an octopus, waking me three times to ask where Captain Mittens was and what he was doing.

He came back the next morning, through the cat flap, as if nothing had happened, saucer-eyed and hungry.

“Captain Mittens!” You scooped him up and hugged him ‘til he squirmed.

***

These days, he sleeps in his basket, no longer scaling fences. At night, he sits with me while I wait: for the cough of a taxi, a door closing, gravel shifting under shoes.

You always say midnight, but sometimes it’s one, sometimes two. Once, it was morning.
I don’t ask.

I fall asleep in the armchair. Somewhere, a car passes. The fridge hums.
Captain Mittens stirs, then settles again.

---

Neil James is a writer from Stoke-on-Trent, England, and the author of ‘Stoke and I: The Nineties’ (Pitch Publishing).  His fiction has been published by Literally Stories, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Wensum Literary Magazine, amongst others. He lives at www.neiljameswriter.co.uk and can be found on Twitter/X @NeilJamesWriter