Short Stories

King of The Mountain

 It is late afternoon going on into the evening as I leave my apartment. I always get a chuckle thinking about my room, it is in my fraternity’s old house and my room is the president’s suite, and I am now the fraternity’s vice president, which I found somewhat ironic.

The sky out is still cloud covered as it has been for a while, I haven’t seen the sun for the better part of a week, despite that today seemed warmer than the others.

I head down the hill towards Thomas Hall and see the group of four kittens I pass nearly every day. One of the kittens is a solid black one, one solid gray, and the other two are gray with black stripes.

They usually are out playing with each other around the traffic cones in an otherwise empty parking lot. But today they have a new toy. I noticed a stack of pallets had been place in the lot, about four pallets tall and stained a dark gray from the recent rainfall. Three kittens are playfully chasing each other around the pallet stack like kids playing a game of ring around the rosie. One however isn’t partaking in the gameplay, rather the lone black kitten is sitting atop the stack of pallets. This kitten looks perfectly content missing out on all the fun happening, just the king of the mountain sitting upon his wooden throne.

Looking past the king kitten I notice a lone black cat about ten yards back, just on the edge of the brush, watching carefully. I have identified this cat in the past as the mother of these kittens as it stood its ground with me the first time I ever saw the kittens and I tried to approach them. The mother cat is sitting back patiently and carefully observing her children play, much like a parent does from a bench at the park. I enjoy the scene for another couple of minutes then I leave them be and continue on my walk.