Welcome home

It had been three days since Socks' disappearance and I still hadn't given up hope that she was going to miraculously show up scratching at my door. I had already posted pictures of her everywhere I could think of. I scoured the neighborhood listening for the faintest meow, searching for the slightest hint of her presence. On the second night, I walked through the streets calling her name, to no avail. I couldn't get thoughts of her out of my head. On the third day I just stood in my apartment, unsure what to do with myself. I wandered down to the lobby ignoring the people passing by. A blonde woman with a too sweet smile shoved something into my hand and I accepted without looking at what it was. Sitting down on the steps outside I glanced at the paper in my hands. It was a pamphlet of some sort, some religious thing. I was about to throw it away when the circle someone had drawn in red pen around one part of the pamphlet. "Care for an animal" it said. I teared up. I hadn't cried in twenty years but I teared up at that bogus religious pamphlet with the red circle. Socks was somewhere out there, alone, scared, waiting for me to come find her. I realized I cared for that stupid little kitten much more than any person I'd ever met. Maybe even more than myself. For all my grumping, calling her annoying, yelling when she knocked things over or scratched at the couch again, I really did care about her. I roughly brushed the back of my hand against my eyes and stood up. That's when I heard the mewling. There was Socks, in all her bedraggled glory. Laughing, I scooped her up and rushed her back to the apartment, not even stopping to heckle the fanatics in the lobby. Socks was back!