Shadrack was wounded badly. He rested his head on the ground. A vision of his past victories flooded his mind. This was beyond repair. He had a gaping rip in his pride. Not a physical injury. This was worse than that. This was his pride and to a cat pride is like an essential organ. His deep green eyes lifted to his slaves, the humans. Did they not care? Why did they walk around as if their noble cat was not in pain? Shadrack stood meawwed annoyingly, then had a little cat tantrum around their feet. He stocked around the living room kneading the couch pillows in frustration. This was the worst day since he stuck his head under the faucet.

 After being angry for an hour, he sat in the sun to lick his handsome deep black fear. Shadrack tried to catnap on the foot rug but could not get comfortable. He tried sleeping on the smooth cold tile but it was too hard. He tried to rest in the sun, out of the sun, on his back, on his side and on his other side. The troubling events of the morning hovered over his head like a pestering fly.

It was just past dawn when he found it, or more like one of his human slaves alerted him with a high-pitched scream. The mouse was in the kitchen under the cereal cabinet. Shadrack knew the drill! Crouching, belly fur touching the ground, eyes fixed on the target. He was within two feet. Then he launched himself into the air in a perfect arch, that is a perfect arch until he hit the cabinet. His heroic body crashed to the floor and in further humiliation his prey escaped.

Shadrack shut his eyes but the images were still vivid. Each time he replayed his blunder more of his pride slipped away. He regretted, mourned, cringed, and lamented until his mind was exhausted. He felt as useless as a bag of cat food.

Then a great thought hit him, because unlike any other being on planet Earth, or the soler system, or the universe for that matter, he was the one and only Shadrack! The best cat, the best feline, the best mammal, the best living thing to be exact. He could get his pride back! He started across the living room with no idea how he would actually do it. 

Shadrack had many ideas, but all were inefficient and involved him getting hurt. He could sacrifice himself to save a human from getting wet, but then he would get wet and that would be catastrophic. He could make himself sick and then heroically get better but that meant he would get sick and that would be terrible. There was just not a way that he could think of that would get his pride back and leave him unharmed. 

Shadrack got to his paws and walked into the kitchen for the second time that day. The humans were still not paying attention to him. Sitting down he licked himself and thought some more. He stopped mid lick and bitt his tongue in horror. On the tile was a square piece of wood with twisted weir protruding from it and a spring. A mousetrap! Because he had not caught the mouse the humans got an ugly substitution for a cat. Shadrack’s eyes simmered! Could they pet a mousetrap? Definitely not! Could they play with a mousetrap? Shadrack didn’t think so. Even if it could catch a mouse it could not do any of the other glorious things that the magnificent Shadrack could? But however unreasonable they had replaced him! Shadrack realized hopelessly that this was hopelessly hopeless. He lowered his head in defeat. On the ground were little paw prints. A mouse! He was suddenly all over the sent trail. He could do this! If he caught the vermin he would regain pride without getting hurt and they would not need the hideous mousetrap!

He searched in the cupboards, the silverware drawer, under the table and behind the fridge. He cocked his head and scratched his ear with his back leg. Where was it? He decided that he would do better with something in his stomach. Although he thought that cat food was disgusting it was his only source of food, and as his only source of food he had to defend it was his life. So when he found a mouse eating his food he jumped into action with a shhhhck! The mouse started to run! Shadrack swiped at it left and right, jumped up and down and slipped and slid on the slippery tile. He chased the scampering rodent through the hall into the living room. Shadrack would not give up now! Then he had it cornered, Shadrack unsheathed his claws but the mouse evaded the blow. It tried to escape, Shadrack baited it across the room! It hit a wall and collapsed! Dashing over to it he raised a paw for the final blow. His claws only made a terrible scratching sound on the tile. Shadrack whirled around just to see the pest running for the couch! It never made it because Shadrack leaped in the air and came down with his paw on his prey. He carried it over to one of the biggest humans and dropped it on her foot. She screamed. Life was definitely back to normal.

That night he was happy to see the mousetrap had been taken away. He was fed and watered, and got a lot of the attention a handsome young cat like him deserved. The humans scurried at his every command. Being a cat he was still prideful and arrogant, nothing had changed in his mind. Nobody would have ever thought that the awesome cat was so close to despair just an hour ago. The half day that Shadrack lost his pride seemed like it never happened. 

The End