I write obituaries for cats who nobody chose. It happened to other cats. It never came together for these. They were not concerned. They did not die forlorn. They were not informed of their status. If you tried to tell them, they would tell you to go bite yourself.

At least, that is what people assume cats would say. People think cats are ring-tailed cynics and aspiring despots. People think cats are drowsy nihilists and gourmands of snark. This is why I have to write the obituaries.

A court of law would correct me on one point. The cats belonged to someone. They belonged to Cat Haven, a nonprofit organization registered under IRS code 501(c)(3). For legal purposes, the cats all had the last name “Solomon,” after Neil Solomon, the Executive Director and President of the shelter. They were not free like the vagrant cats behind Arby’s. They were property, like a gazing ball or a fitted sheet. They remained among Cat Haven’s assets until they departed, unadopted.

I am paid to raise money for cats who are still available for adoption, not to mess around with paeans to the dead. But someone needs to bear witness, because they did not go home in carriers.

I have known Solomons who were pro bono social workers. There are bards and alchemists passing through polyester tunnels like worlds. Plain tabbies lick their bellies and lift the fallen in the space of an hour. Stoics and epicures practice politics over kibble shaped like stars. Uncombed venerables ram pink noses into kneecaps.

They had names before we called them Candy Corn or Maurice. They have better names now. I know people who would not be alive if not for cats whom nobody chose. On the day that doesn’t end, unadoptable cats get dibs on the last lap. They were ours on loan. Anyone who dies underestimated was too big for the carrier. This is why I have to write the obituaries.

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Angela Townsend is an eleven-time Pushcart Prize nominee, twenty-one time Best of the Net nominee, and the winner of The Iowa Review’s Tim McGinnis Award and West Trade Review‘s 704 Prize for Flash Fiction. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Arts & Letters, Blackbird, Five Points, Fourth Genre, JMWW, The Offing, SmokeLong Quarterly, trampset, and Witness. She works for a cat sanctuary.