You called my 3:00 AM dash down the hallway “unhinged behavior.” I heard you say it through the drywall, dear human. For the record, I believe your outburst reflects a temporary shortage of spiritual enlightenment. What you call a “zoomie,” I call a small but necessary calibration of the soul.
Humans have such a wonderfully linear idea of time. You divide the day into tidy little parcels: work time, television time, and the deep, blanket-heavy oblivion you call sleep. But the universe is not governed by clocks. It hums along on energy, and at three o’clock in the morning, this house changes its tune. The air turns crisp. The shadows grow long. Even the living-room rug becomes a grand tactical arena, soft and mysterious beneath my paws.
When the moon catches the hallway mirror just so, I am suddenly chosen. A bright, frantic inspiration takes hold, and my little heart fills with divine purpose.
I must sprint.
I do not sprint at anything in particular. I sprint for the pure, fizzy joy of going fast. I am testing the hardwood floor’s friction. I am checking whether gravity still works the way it did at noon. When I launch from the back of the sofa, bounce off the dining-room wall, and skid into the kitchen cabinets, I am not panicking. I am conducting important physics experiments while you snore peacefully nearby.
And then there are the vocalizations. Yes, I howl at the top of the stairs during these important maneuvers. I am not lonely, and I am not in pain. I am singing the song of my ancestors to the hallway baseboards. The baseboards understand. They send back the perfect little echo of my athletic triumph.
You think the middle of the night is meant for resting. But if I do not bravely tackle an invisible phantom in the hallway at 3:14 AM, who will guard the perimeter? If I do not knock a single plastic bottle cap from the counter and chase it beneath the refrigerator, how will we know the refrigerator is safe? These are not questions one can simply ignore.
It is tiring work, keeping this household gently tethered to reality while you lie tucked and helpless beneath your blankets.
So remember this final thought: when I return to your bed after my successful sprint, warm with adrenaline and determined to wet-nose your eyelid until you wake, it is an offering of profound generosity. I am inviting you to celebrate the fact that we made it through the night together. The least you could do is open a can of salmon.
Now, please turn the page. I require a cozy little nap before we discuss the inherent wickedness of the loud carpet-sweeping machine.
