It was morning. She felt the chill of the wind come in through her cracked window; it was colder than usual for fall’s sweet hum. In bed, her blankets burritoed around her body, leaving only her face and mouth exposed. Mittens, her 12-year-old cat, lay at her feet. The air crackled; she could see her breath cloud around her face as its heat contrasted with the room’s cold. But the air didn’t go away after each breath as it should have; it lingered around her face like the steam from a pot of boiling water. It was almost suffocating; she screamed, but the mass only got larger until Mittens yawned. Suddenly, the mass vanished.
“What just happened?” Lily said out loud. Strange, she heard her voice, but her lips and mouth didn’t move. She began to panic; her body shot up from under her blankets to feel her face, startling Mittens.
“Come on, Lily, I was comfortable. Did you have to have an earthquake on the bed?” Her lips moved, and she made sounds, but it wasn’t her voice speaking.
She could hardly understand the noise she heard. Whose deep voice was this? And why was it coming out of my mouth? Lily’s arms trembled. Her eyes almost shot out of her head as her gaze shifted toward Mittens. She hesitated.
“. . .Hello?” she said, now horrified, as she watched and heard her words come from Mittens’ feline mouth. Mittens seemed startled, too.
“Oh, I did not just make that sound,” Mittens said out of Lily’s mouth.
Lily couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Is he speaking English? Mittens’ voice was coming out of her human mouth, and hers was coming out of Mittens’ feline mouth. It was as if a lightbulb turned on for both of them as they looked at each other.
“Wait,” they said in unison, eyes locked on each other’s mouth.
“Did we just?”
“Are we?”
“Did you?”
“How are we–”
“I have so many questions.”
The more they spoke back and forth, the clearer Mittens’ words became. This was Lily’s first time communicating with Mittens. It may not have been under the most welcoming circumstances, but she could finally talk to the one thing that had been with her through it all—no matter what, he was there. Before she had a chance to speak, Mittens broke the silence with his twangy speech. It’s very foreign to feel a voice that is not your own travel out of your mouth. It was like the worst case of hiccups—you can feel them coming, but you have no control over when or what will come out, if anything.
“So, it seems we have switched voices,” he said slowly as if translating the words in his head to English.
“Yes, indeed. It seems we have,” Lily said, still having a hard time looking at her cat’s mouth, which spoke the words she had just said.
Silence stretched between them again.
Mittens walked across the bed and curled up in Lily’s lap. Out of muscle memory, Lily began to pet and scratch him, just as she did on any regular morning.
“Do you like it when I scratch under your neck?” she said.
“I’m purring, aren’t I?” His English was improving.
“Is there anything you don’t like?”
“For starters, the way you shot up from bed, like this morning.”
“Yeah, that’s my bad one hundred per cent. I never meant to do that.”
“Also, you don’t feed me enough, and your family calls me fat. I can hear you all, you know.”
See, this was the problem with Mittens. This cat was not being starved. In fact, he was fed many more times a day than needed, as his acting skills and cries convinced the whole family he needed more food. He was a hunk of a cat, nearing 20 lbs.
“I’m not commenting on that, but I agree that they should stop calling you fat,” Lily said.
“Thank you,” Mittens said. “Now what?”
Hearing the words ring out of her mouth and bounce back, Lily wondered what was next. Would she apply for America’s Got Talent and amaze the world with Mittens? Would people believe what happened to her? Was she going crazy?
“Wait!” Lily said. She just remembered she had an interview today. Her loud voice startled Mittens, who jumped off Lily and ran out of sight to the other side of the room.
“Ah! I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you again, Mittens.” She finally got out of bed, remembering how cold it was, and ran to the closet to change clothes, slipping on her favorite fall dress. I can use my voice to find where he’s hiding. Lily slipped on her shoes.
“Mittens, please come out.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Her voice was getting louder as she moved to the other side of the bedroom.
“I’m not leaving this spot or going near you again,” Mittens said.
I don’t have the time for this; it was an accident.
“Mittens, either you come out now or I’ll have to do this the hard way.”
She waited for his voice, but the anticipation in her throat disappeared. Lily didn’t feel the hiccup sensation of word vomit ready to flow out at any given moment. She went to the closet and threw on her puffy jacket and gloves because the next part would be messy. Above the clothes rack, she grabbed Mittens’ cat backpack, too, and unzipped the sides.
“Hey Mittens,” she said. Her voice was close, and it sounded like it was coming from under the dresser. “Look, I really didn’t mean to scare you, and I’m sorry, but I really need your cooperation.”
She looked under the dresser, and sure enough, Mittens was crouched there, lying against the wall. Only his green eyes could be seen from the darkness under the dresser.
“This is your last chance, Mittens; please get out from under here.” But she knew he wasn’t going to move.
Lily got on her hands and knees and stuck her arms under the dresser.
“You made me do this, Mittens,” she said as she forcefully grabbed Mittens from under his arms and started to pull. He resisted, of course, and his nails dug deep into the carpet to give him more resistance.
“YOU’RE NOT TAKING ME!” God, this is worse than if he were just meowing. It’s almost embarrassing that these words are coming from my mouth.
One final pull and she had him. His claws dug into her jacket. She pried him off and zipped him up into the bag.
“Nwooooow.” Now that sounded like a meow. It was the sound of defeat. Instead of instant meows, the next few minutes were followed by cries of fake pain, misery, and name-calling coming from her mouth.
She grabbed Mittens and headed down the stairs.
“You’re doing great, Mittens, okay? Just a bit longer.” They may have switched voices, but Mittens was still a cat, and he certainly complained like one. He settled down once they got into the car and Lily unzipped his bag.
Mittens began to groom himself. “Just as long as we aren’t going to the V E T, I’ll be fine,” Mittens finally said.
“We have to get through my job interview first. There’s no promise of anything after a day like today,” Lily said. While no one dreams of being a receptionist, she would be working at her dream company. She had to land this job and build her way up.
She backed out of the driveway and turned on a playlist labeled “calming music for anxious cats,” which she always played when Mittens was in the car.
“Is this the only thing the car plays?” Mittens said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, whenever we get in the car, this is the only music that plays, but when we are home, you play all types of music.”
“It’s meant to be calming.”
“I would prefer something else.”
My cat has a music taste and does not like the calming music I have always played for him. So much for that!
“What would you like instead?” Lily rolled up to a stoplight and grabbed her phone.
“What you would normally play, I guess,” Mittens said.
Lily pressed “shuffle” on her daily mix, which was filled with the day’s top hits and her favorite female artists. After a few minutes of listening, Mittens spoke up.
“This is not what I meant. We can just sit here in silence.”
Is my cat judging my music taste. What is my life?
“What would you put on, since you’re so picky?” Lily said, putting the phone down.
“I’ll show you,” Mittens said.
Out of the corner of her eye, Lily saw Mittens pawing at her phone screen as if it were a cat toy.
It took him a few minutes before a song started to play. . . How did he?
“Are you playing rock?” she said.
Lily tried to grab the phone, as she despised rock. How on earth had her cat acquired a taste for rock music? In her attempt to grab the phone from Mittens, she swerved.
“Agh! Mittens, just give me the phone!”
Lily realigned her eyes to the road and straightened out once she had gotten the phone back.
“Focus on the road,” Mittens said, settling back into the seat.
They pulled into the parking lot of a very large-looking theater a few minutes later. Lily smoothed her burnt orange dress in the car window while Mittens watched her with mild concern. She grabbed a mask to cover her mouth. I’ll just tell them I have allergies and I’m cat-sitting for a friend.
“You look nervous,” he said.
“I am nervous,” Lily whispered. “And please—just…don’t make me look stupid.”
“No promises.”
Inside, Lily sat across from the interviewer, hands folded in her lap. The questions were simple enough. This is almost going well. The interviewer cleared his throat before the final question.
“Would you care to tell me why you brought a cat to this interview with you?”
Lily spoke on her feet, feeling her face flush. Her face mask made her feel like she was drowning as sweat started to fall down her face. She stumbled over her words and explained that Mittens had separation anxiety, and him being at work would be a one-time thing, as he was a friend’s cat. Way to lie on your first interview. As she spoke, the interviewers’ facial expressions shifted from stern to soft. Lily couldn’t quite tell what that meant, but it helped her cool down. After a firm handshake and a promise of a follow‑up about the position, Lily and Mittens headed back to the car.
The drive home was quiet; it felt like any words would only make the air heavier. Once the two got back into Lily’s room, words started to feel less heavy. Lily got Mittens his kibble and he purred loudly like it was his first time eating. With some hesitation, Lily broke the quiet.
“Thank you. You’ve always been there for me.”
“It’s really hard to eat when you’re talking,” Mittens said, looking up, irritated.
Lily covered her mouth, even though it wouldn’t do anything. The whole voice switch still felt strange. She waited for him to inhale the rest of his food, then tried again.
“I mean it,” she said. “You have always been here for me.”
Mittens licked his paw and wiped it carefully across his face before answering.
“Well, someone has to supervise you.”
Lily laughed softly, though her stomach still twisted with the memory of the interview.
“I think I ruined it,” she admitted. “I talked too fast. I lied. I brought a cat. Who brings a cat to an interview?”
“You brought me,” Mittens corrected. “And for the record, you didn’t ruin it.”
“You can’t possibly know that.”
“I know humans,” he said. Lily sat on the edge of her bed, replaying the interviewer’s face going from hard to gentle.
“I’ve been lonely,” she said. “More than I realized. I just—I really need this job.”
Mittens hopped up beside her and curled into a warm ball.
“I know,” he said. “You need some way to buy my kibble.”
Lily glared at Mittens. That furball can really be full of it sometimes, but god, I still love him. She reached over, scratched behind his ears, and he began to purr.
That night, Lily fell asleep faster than she had in weeks. In her sleep, she suddenly felt it again—the warm, misty breath that had started everything. It curled around her face like steam in cold air. This time, she didn’t panic. She let it settle on her like a long embrace with someone you haven’t seen in years. Slowly, it faded.
Half-awake, she whispered into the darkness, “Mittens?”
Her own voice answered from her mouth. She cleared her throat and tried again.
“Mittens?”
Still just her. Across the bed, Mittens lifted his head from the blanket and gave a perfectly ordinary meow. He’s probably upset that I woke him again.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. Come over here,” she said, patting her hand beside her. Lily smiled into her pillow as Mittens curled up next to her head. The two never talked like that again. But on cold nights, when Mittens curls up on her bed, she swears she can hear his voice in the back of her throat, and his meows make her take a second glance.