Orion the Hunter

Orion the Hunter
Every morning I wake up to the gentle nudging of my cat, Orion. She is named after the most famous male hunter in history, but it was an accident – when we rescued her from the pound they told us she was a boy cat. The name stuck regardless. She crawls onto my chest and bats my face with her soft paw, claws sheathed. I lift my head up and open my eyes, blinking slowly. Her intense gaze does not, will not waver. I try to return the stare. Her eyes are slits, pupils contracted to defend against the bright morning sun streaming in through the window. The irises glow ominous chartreuse, and I can’t help thinking of a cold-blooded reptile like a crocodile, or maybe an ancient dinosaur. Her curious gaze is mesmerizing; it captivates and holds me, helpless. Finally my bleary eyes can’t take anymore, and my head falls back onto the pillow. I feel the muscles bunch in her hind legs, and her claws issue from the tips of her paws with a very quiet, very distinct shick. The points easily pierce the light sheet and t-shirt; they hardly put up a fight. I wince, biting my lip, and Orion leaps abruptly onto the headboard above the bed.
I sit up and turn around to watch her. On all fours now, she arches her back, spinal cord bending to an impossible angle. She proceeds to stretch out as long as possible, paws spread out in front. I can see the lean, sinewy muscle ripple just underneath her short fur. She sits up suddenly, ears pointing straight to the ceiling as if they were periscopes on a war submarine. She slinks over to the window, and I admire the sunlight glinting off of her smooth, sleek fur. Gray, black, and gray-black, it obscures her at night and defines her during the day. It is an erratic pattern of murky stripes, some wide and some thin, and many in between. The edges blur and melt into one another, spilling and splashing like a babbling mountain brook. Her tail twitches restlessly back and forth like a sidewinder rattlesnake shifting peculiarly...