Breaking up is hard. Probably more so in Cat World, where the bonds that tether cat lovers are so exceptionally strong. Seamus knew this, which is why he was so floored at the magnitude to which his cat heart was broken.

His friends tried to reassure him, offering advice on what he could do to ease his pain. Find an especially bouncy ball of yarn. Chase a laser point as it dances across a surface. Stay away from sad songs.

The problem is that all this advice rang hollow, as it is impossible for one cat who has experienced heartbreak to advise another, let alone for a cat whose heart is still intact. One never feels so little motivation for chasing mice than when occupying the depths of the Well of Heartache. And staying away from love songs is a falsity, so common an idea that it has proliferated well beyond its reasonable application, offered from someone who imagines what heartbreak would be like, but who has not experienced it. Love songs are the least of a shattered cats worries.

Try looking through a calendar, with dates like “tour the Cat World museum together” still occupying future panels. Or reaching into your cat wallet and accidentally pulling out a receipt of the hot dogs you bought together at the baseball game, which was the time of your life for every other reason than cat baseball. Or listening to old voicemails only to hear Janxy’s phantom voice, a welcome apparition reminding you of better times that now seem so distant and out of reach you can question whether they happened at all, or were just part of some unfairly joyous catnap dream.

No one told Seamus about that. Continue reading “The Ballad of Seamus and Janxy II: Breakups”