Chapter 2: The Arrival of Ambassador Whiskers

Lawrence’s apartment looked less like a place where a person lived and more like a storage locker where hope paid delinquent rent. The carpet had developed relief maps—ridges where his chair rolled, valleys where he never vacuumed. A futon sagged in the middle as if an invisible heavyweight slept there nightly; a stain bloomed on the fabric like an inkblot daring him to interpret it. An unopened poster tube leaned against the wall, three years of “I’ll hang it tomorrow” compressed into cardboard. The lamp in the corner was taped at the neck like a hostage. A dead basil plant kept vigil on the windowsill, stems stiff and accusatory over soil turned to concrete.

The curtains never met; they were shy of each other by two stubborn inches. Through that slit, the bodega’s neon OPEN pumped red into the room at all hours—a mechanical heartbeat for a body that didn’t want to wake. Magnets held pizza coupons on the fridge like medals from battles he’d lost. The sink’s strata of bowls and forks could have earned a geology degree.

Lawrence padded in wearing socks that had once been white. He scooped too many grounds into the machine, jabbed the button, and braced himself on the counter while the caffeine geyser sputtered to life. The room smelled faintly of old garlic and wet cardboard.

“Your lair,” said a voice behind him, “is a disgrace.”

He turned so fast his hip clipped the counter. On the table sat a cat—sleek, black, glossy—with a perfectly fitted tuxedo, the bowtie a neat, unarguable fact.

“What the—”

“Address me properly,” the cat said, baritone and faintly Oxford, “I am Ambassador Whiskers.”

Lawrence grabbed the broom. “Out.”

The cat did not flinch. He sprang in a satin arc onto the refrigerator and settled like a centerpiece. “Really, Lawrence, attacking your guest with a broom?” He tilted his head. “Chivalry is not dead; it has simply been replaced with custodial zeal.”

“You’re not real,” Lawrence said. “I’m hallucinating.”

“Hallucinations do not starch their collars.” The cat smoothed an invisible wrinkle with a small, disdainful paw.

Lawrence swung. He wasn’t a practiced broom-fencer. The bristles whooshed a clean miss, and momentum carried the handle into a precarious Jenga of pizza boxes. They sluiced to the floor in a greasy avalanche.

“Footwork,” Whiskers advised, like a fencing coach bored by the quality of his students. “One must keep the feet under the hips. Though I confess, the assignment has all the appeal of teaching a doorknob how to dance.”

Lawrence jabbed again. Whiskers hopped from fridge to the taped-neck lamp, from lamp to the bookshelf, knocking loose a yellowing Men’s Fitness featuring “Abs in 30 Days!” and a spiral notebook labeled “Projects” that contained nothing but blank pages.

“Excellent lunge,” the cat said. “Shame about the balance. And truly—if you caught me, what then? Sweep me into enlightenment?”

Lawrence overcommitted, his sock slid on a soda can ring, and he windmilled into the wall. The broom clattered. Stars pinged along his scalp.

“Lesson one,” Whiskers said, settling on the counter without a sound. “Never duel in socks.”

Lawrence snatched his phone, flipped open the camera, and aimed. The screen showed an empty counter. He lowered it. The cat was still there, cleaning a paw with precise contempt.

“What—how—”

“Diplomatic immunity.” A blink. “Now. Sit.”

He dropped into a chair. The apartment’s small noises resumed: fridge hum, faucet drip, the distant mechanical heartbeat of OPEN OPEN OPEN.

“You are pitiful,” said Whiskers. “Not doomed—pitiful. Doomed men cannot be saved. Pitiful men can be reupholstered.”

“Why me?” Lawrence rasped.

“Because you are absurd. And absurd men can be salvaged.”

“I don’t need rescuing.”

“Oh, but you do.” The cat’s voice turned bright and clinical. “Two nights ago—a woman in a green dress. You opened by critiquing her clothing, then read aloud from the scripture of pseudoscience. At the halfway mark you declared yourself a ‘nice guy.’ She exited. You paid for both drinks.”