Filed Under Later

Nobody asked Misfit to file August. This has not affected the record.

She will tell it anyway, in full, because two planets continue to operate without proper supervision.

Misfit is an orange tabby with six toes on each front paw, eleven pounds of professional opinion, and a jurisdiction she has never written down because writing it down would imply it had edges. She has been to another planet. She came home. She now considers both Earth and Fury inadequately staffed.

In August she had five matters requiring attention.

A warm spot. Whistler occupies eleven feet of fence rail, then moves six inches. It is not an apology. It may be a treaty. Misfit is prepared to recognize the distinction.

A dry board. There is exactly one under the porch, and Pigeon arrives wet without asking to share it. Later she leaves behind a white feather and an entire story she declines to explain. Misfit keeps both. For evidence.

An occupation. A toad settles beneath the hosta. A retired spider establishes a checkpoint. The ants redesign their supply line. Anjie moves the flowerpot. Misfit is surrounded by amateurs.

A dog. Noodle digs a hole no human understands and hears a truck before the sound arrives. Misfit has spent the summer insisting she is merely a dog. The file may require revision.

A second sunrise. Back on Fury, the grass hums, the sky-threads cast two shadows, and something beneath the sand breathes slowly enough that only a creature six inches off the ground would notice. Anjie sits beside it. Misfit does too, for surveillance.

Told in Misfit's own voice—dry, self-important, secretly tender, and entirely convinced she is the only one paying attention—Filed Under Later is the August installment of Misfit's Monthly, an illustrated novel in stories from the World of Fury.

Filed under Later. — Misfit