The Great Game

It's been ten months since Loki died.  Loki the trickster.  Loki the clown.  Loki the adventurer.  Loki the lover.  Loki the snuggler.

Leaving behind Muldoon.  Muldoon the introvert.  Muldoon the shy one.  Muldoon the cautious.  Muldoon the stand-offish.  Muldoon who drew back from human touch.  Muldoon "the cat who walked by himself."

Loki's death puzzled Muldoon, but he didn't really grieve.  But Loki's death did ultimately transform him.  Day by day, he grew closer to me, day by day he resisted less being handled, day by day he parked himself closer to me as I sat reading.  Until today, Muldoon is still shy and cautious, still introverted, but he is like the shy kid who's finally found a friend, a friend to whom he can't stop talking.  He not only has become the complete lap cat, but a lap cat who follows me about the house demanding a lap.

I'm happy with the relationship that's developed between us, something I would never have predicted while the Trickster, the Lover, was still alive.

But I miss watching the game of chess the two cats played while Loki still lived.  A chess game in which I was the passive King, a piece which seldom moves but whose existence is central to the game.  The game, as played by Loki and Muldoon, was to keep each other a safe distance away from the King.  The strategy for Loki, of course, was pre-emptive, involving frequent attempts to jump on my lap; Muldoon would approach me reluctantly, only as a defensive move to block Loki.

I would sit reading in the living room, glancing up every so often to note the quiet moves of the two cats about the room, only occasionally bursting into overt action, more usually moving one square at a time, feinting, thrusting, attempting to place the King in check, moving to block the check. 

At times the tension would break into violence, generally with Muldoon the Cautious chasing Loki the Adventurer across the room and up onto the back of a chair or sofa.  It was a game, however, and after a match they could be found grooming each other as though best buddies.

As 10 p.m. drew near, tension would begin to build.  Bedtime was approaching, and once I was in bed reading I would become a willing target for their affection.  Plenty of room on the bed for them both, plenty of affection to go around.  But, with Trumpian logic, they believed life to be a zero-sum game.  Any attention I showed one counted as a loss of face for the other.  Hence, the jockeying for position around the foot of the stairs as I began brushing my teeth.

Loki's game plan was entirely offensive -- to dash up the stairs and onto my bed.  Muldoon's was entirely defensive -- to position himself first at the foot of the stairs, and then at some point on the stairway itself, so as to block Loki --  even if his maneuvering forced me to step over him as I went up the stairs myself.  As with the French and German war plans in the first world war, timing for both was everything.  As a result, bedtime preparations for the cats gradually moved up earlier and earlier in the evening, as the chess pieces were moved into place.

Today, I get all the affection from Muldoon that I could hope for from a cat.  But I do miss watching the Great Game unfold before my eyes as each evening progresses.