How to say "I love you"

You'd think that after living with someone for this many years, that you'd KNOW them. That over time, you could learn to understand one another's moods, and act accordingly simply by observing their body language. After a lifetime together, communication should be about more than vocalization between entities sharing not just living space but also love.

Sadly, this is not always the case. My Alice ... she tries so hard, and fails. I can tell from her tones that she is concerned, and I try to relate what is happening to me. The fact is, I have grown old. My joints ache. She politely ignores how much harder it is for me to get up onto our bed. I know she is aware, because twice now I have needed help, and she has silently just given me her gentle hand and kept on chattering.

I notice time is taking a toll on her as well. It seems that as Alice has aged, she has both deepened in personality while fading visually. Her hair -- oh how I loved to play with it, once upon a time -- no longer glows like embers in a winter fire. At least she keeps it long for me.

Sometimes I do not quite hear her anymore, and I find I get nervous when she is late coming home. I don't have to watch a clock to notice that night has stepped in and killed the day! She acts like it is nothing, this little cruelty that gets no explanation. I tell her that it bothers me, and she gathers me in her arms and I forget why I was mad.

We both know it isn't anger, it is fear. So odd, to be afraid FOR someone. In particular, someone who has always been so ... capable! She never asked me for anything but my time, she has always provided anything I have wanted, everything I have needed, without question. Anyone with a heart knows that devotion like this does not require explicit definition. The words "I love you" echo from the actions of making this place a home, together.

And yet, as she slammed the door before she left, she snarled "dammit, just once you could say thank you!"

Now, it is too late to tell her. She is gone, and shall not return. I have lost her. I have stalked our house upstairs and down, corner to corner, screaming to the dust mites and cobwebs that have gathered while her eyesight has begun to fail. Years ago, the place was always spotless, but what does it matter now?

"I don't care about the clutter", I scream. "I don't give a shit about your dirty socks on the stairs! Just come home to me!"

But there is no-one to hear my pleas. My pathetic cries soon become too much for even my own ears, and I curl up like a newborn around the ball of pain that is my soul in the center of our living room. I wish to die, and finally I succumb to exhausted sleep.

"Darling pussycat, WAKE UP!", the spectre shrieks. Icy air cuts me! The glass of our front window rattles like bones from the slamming of our door. A ghost is stroking my fur. A ghost that could almost be my "MEEEOWL-ICE?"!

At hearing her name, she swoops me off the floor, and I can feel her heat. This is no ghost! This is that obnoxious woman! MY woman! She lets me down and I tell her with a shuddering of my tail and a turn of my back, that she has brought nothing but SORROW to me, HER CAT. I stomp off towards the kitchen. For punishment I stop without warning, immobile as a statue, blocking the hallway. Alice lurches down it like a ping-pong ball to avoid stepping on me.

"Oh! My! God! Dammit! CAT cat cat! Why???" she wails. I sit down, and gaze deeply into her eyes, now level with mine as she has fallen. So clumsy, just like the kitten she brought home one night, soggy and cold. That kitten was me. "MRooow Wow Wooo!" escapes from behind my whiskers and I see she understands without a doubt. My words and actions have finally, it seems, become connected in her mushy human brain.

Through her ridiculous sobs, interspersed with giggles, my Alice says "I love you, too."