Ever since the beginning of lockdowns, my cat and I have been inseparable. I work as a graphic designer and even after things started opening back up, my firm never made any steps to return to office. I’ve been incredibly grateful for this, because I’m the kind of person who likes to wear sweatpants 24/7 and do nothing but eat snacks and hang out with my anxiety-riddled cat.
Virginia (Ginny for short) is a black and grey striped shorthair with a very distinct patch of fur on her forehead. When she tilts her head (or if you tilt yours), the marking looks pretty damn identical to the state of Virginia. She may seem shy to strangers, but when she’s with me she’s the biggest little attention whore you’ve ever seen.
Normally I have no beef with giving my cat all the love and scritches she could ever want, but her neediness can be a problem when I’m trying to work. That’s where the Cat TV first came into our lives.
A few weeks ago, our firm landed a major client. Like, one of the most famous companies in the world, and they wanted us to do a massive campaign for a new product they were planning to announce. I was assigned as the creative lead and, even while working from home, this easily became the most stressful project I’ve ever worked on.
Of course, Ginny couldn’t give two shits about my new responsibilities and was feeling as needy as ever. I couldn’t lock her out of my studio or she would whine at the door until I let her in, so I had to come up with a plan. She likes to sit on my desk as I work, and since my setup has two screens I ingeniously decided to distract her with one screen while working on the other. I’d heard of “Cat TV” before, but had never tried it with Ginny, so I went on YouTube and found a livestream titled “24/7 Cat TV: Birds, Squirrels, and More!”
I clicked the link and the stream loaded up, showing a cute and scenic little view of what I assumed was someone’s backyard. There was a little pond in the foreground surrounded by fresh snow, and just beyond was a forest of thin, barren trees. By the pond’s edge was a small pile of nuts and seeds. Besides the feed of live comments on the right side of the screen, I found the whole scene rather relaxing and I was hoping that Ginny might feel the same.
Soon, a squirrel bounded into frame, and Ginny was instantly hooked. Her ears perked up and her eyes locked onto the squirrel as it chowed down greedily on an almond. Soon another squirrel joined the party, and then a robin. Each new arrival seemed to suck Ginny even further into the stream. For the first time since we’d nabbed our new client, I could work without any distractions.
This became our new routine, until one day something strange happened on the stream. I only noticed because Ginny had gotten more excited than usual, so I looked over and saw that there was a cat in the frame. It was a bushy, orange and white Maine Coon and it had something in it’s mouth. Soon, I recognized a faint squealing sound and I felt a weight drop in my stomach. The Maine Coon was biting down on a baby squirrel, who was shrieking helplessly as it wriggled in desperation. From the safety of the tree branches above, several adult squirrels angrily chirped at the scene.
Ginny chittered in excitement, seemingly approving of the carnage on screen. I noticed the live chat was exploding with comments, but one comment from “CaptainCooper23” stood out to me:
thats my cat!! he just jumped through the screen WTF!!@
As soon as I read that, the Maine Coon jumped towards the camera and disappeared from sight. A second later, the feed shuttered and went black. I was in shock, not really sure what the hell I just saw. Whatever it was, it gave me a serious case of the heebies, but Ginny looked as calm as ever. I decided that we were going to take a break from the Cat TV for a while.
Unfortunately, the next morning Ginny was back to her old, needy ways. She started pawing at me almost as soon as I woke up, which escalated to nips while I put on a kettle and then full on bites as I started my work day. Fed up, I decided to put on a different Cat TV stream, one I made sure was not a live feed.
For some reason, this wasn’t good enough for Ginny. She meowed and wailed as if to tell me that I had just gotten her generic when she deserved the name brand. Reluctantly, I found “24/7 Cat TV: Birds, Squirrels, and More!” and threw on the stream.
The setting was the same as always, and thankfully there were no predators in the mix. Ginny finally settled down, and I got back to work. I was almost immediately reminded of the kettle I had put on when the whistle ripped me from my concentration. I hurried to the kitchen, leaving Ginny alone with her favorite show.
A few moments later I returned to my desk with a fresh cup of tea, only to find that Ginny was missing. This was weird, because up to this point I’d never seen her voluntarily abandon her live stream. I quickly noticed that, once again, a cat had infiltrated the stream. This one looked remarkably like Ginny and seemed to have a fledgling bluejay in its mouth. Like a car wreck, I couldn’t help but rubberneck as the kitty enjoyed playing with it’s food. That’s when I noticed the patch of fur on the cat’s forehead. I tilted my head, and what I saw looked strangely like a map of Virginia…
No, that’s crazy. I’m crazy, I thought. I put down the tea and decided to look around the house for my cat. After about 20 minutes of no luck, I was beginning to panic. I was afraid to go back to my office, because seeing that cat on the stream again would probably make me lose my sanity for good. With nowhere else for her to hide, I finally made my way back to my desk where I found Ginny waiting for me. She was curled up by the screen as if she’d never left. The feed had gone black, and I let out a massive sigh of relief as my sanity returned to me.
Then I saw the feathers.
Long blue plumes surrounded by tufts of down. Hanging from Ginny’s mouth was the fledgling bluejay, battered and bloody. She crunched down on the bones like she was eating her favorite dry food.
I screamed, and Ginny gave me a disapproving glare as I began to shout “drop it” over and over in an increasingly panicked tone. Eventually she complied, and I quickly scooped the bird up and into the trash can.
Cool as a cucumber, Ginny stretched and then made her way to her bed for a nap. I had never been scared of a cat before, but suddenly I was terrified at the implications of what I had just seen. I didn’t want to believe it, and I tried not to, but something inside was screaming that I was in danger. I called in sick for the rest of the day. My boss didn’t love it, but I put my foot down. A few minutes later, Ginny was in her crate and we were on our way to the vet.
I told the vet that Ginny was acting strange and had eaten a baby bird. The vet seemed unconcerned, even when I brought up her addiction to Cat TV. He said, “They’re a lot like us, sometimes they just want to lay around and watch their favorite show.”
I wanted to ask him if he’d ever jumped into an episode of The Sopranos and ate some gabagool with Tony, but I kept my mouth shut.
The next day, I had to get back to work. The deadline was looming and losing a day put me farther behind schedule than I had anticipated. I had to get serious, which meant I had to put my foot down with Ginny. She was no longer allowed in my office during work hours, and I was just going to have to deal with her whining.
Things got worse over the next few days. Ginny had become a full on menace without her Cat TV. She was running around the house, knocking vases off counters, and scratching up every piece of furniture she could get her claws into. She would swat at me whenever I walked out of the office, to the point where I would have to run to the bathroom several times a day to avoid her fury.
Then she stopped eating. I tried everything: wet food, dry food, treats. I even got some fresh salmon from the butcher, but she wouldn’t even sniff it. Her violent outbursts stopped, and she sank into what I could only describe as a depression. She stopped whining at my closed office door, but whenever I opened it I found her laying down just on the other side. I knew I was watching my baby girl wither away.
Against my better judgement, I decided to do the one thing I had been avoiding for days. I let Ginny into the office, and I put on “24/7 Cat TV: Birds, Squirrels, and More!”
Immediately Ginny perked up, as if back to her old self. Within a few moments, a field mouse scurried into frame and toward the pile of seeds. Ginny locked her eyes on him as he stuffed too many sunflower seeds into his cheeks. She crouched low, eyes fixed, and began to wiggle her hindquarters ever so slightly. Suddenly, she bound forward and passed through the monitor into the stream itself. She landed on top of the mouse, who never stood a chance. She crunched its little skull, then began to enjoy her meal.
I watched, silent and stunned. I don’t know how long I sat there, but eventually I started to call for Ginny. She looked up at me, the tattered remains of the mouth held firmly between her paws. The other viewers must have heard me as well, because the comments started to blow up with people talking about “the voice”. I didn’t care though, I just wanted my Ginny back.
She stared at me through the monitor for what felt like an eternity before suddenly standing up. She picked up the mouse between her teeth, and then strode confidently offscreen.
I spent the rest of the day waiting for her to return. I was anxious, what if something were to happen to her out there in the woods? Hours turned to days, days turned to weeks. I can’t bring myself to close the stream. It’s become a permanent fixture in my life, playing endlessly except for the rare cut to black as someone else’s cat enters from some far corner of the world. My heart skips a beat whenever a new cat jumps into frame, but it quickly sinks when I realize it isn’t my Ginny.
Maybe she’ll come back to me, but I’m beginning to accept that she probably isn’t. I hope she’s happy out there, wherever she is. Until the day that she pops back onto my screen, I’ll keep the stream alive.