Chapter 25: Tiny Pancakes and a Shared Morning
Travis stirred, a sharp ache blooming along the length of his spine. The leather armchair had molded itself unforgivingly around his frame, and for a disorienting moment, he didn’t recognize the dim, blue-tinged gloom of the office. Then he felt it: the gentle, rhythmic sweep of a silken tail against the nape of his neck, and the small, dense warmth nestled along his shoulder, a living weight tucked securely between his collarbone and the soft cotton of his t-shirt.
Mavis. Asleep. On him.
The hollow ache that had taken up residence behind his sternum yesterday was still present, but it had softened at the edges, like a hard chip of ice beginning to melt. It was no longer a void; it was a soreness, something that could be catalogued and endured. He breathed in slowly, smelling his own sleep, the faint leather of the chair, and the clean, hay-like scent of Mavis’s fur.
Moving with the deliberate care of a bomb disposal expert, Travis shifted. He carefully extracted his arm from where it was pinned, his fingers tingling with returning circulation. Mavis made a soft, chittering noise in his sleep but didn’t wake, his body simply adjusting to the new slope of Travis’s shoulder. Travis used his free hand to retrieve the tablet, which had slid to the floor, its screen now dark and cool.
He sat for another minute, just feeling the breath move in and out of his lungs, synchronizing with the tiny rise and fall against his neck. Then, with a grunt, he pushed himself up from the chair. His joints popped in protest. Mavis stirred again, his tail tightening momentarily around Travis’s neck like a living scarf.
“S’okay,” Travis whispered, his voice gravelly with sleep. “Just… pancake o’clock.”
That did it. Mavis’s head emerged from the collar of Travis’s shirt, his ears twitching, his fur mussed into adorable cowlicks. “You said the magic words,” he mumbled, already more awake.
Travis carried him to the kitchen, the morning light pale and tentative through the cracked window. He filled a tall glass with water and drank it down, the cold a shock that sharpened the world into focus. His stomach offered no complaint, no hunger, just a dull, distant emptiness. He ignored it.
He set the glass in the sink with a clink and reached for the special kit in the cupboard beside the fridge: a miniature cast-iron skillet, a tiny whisk no bigger than a toothpick, and a ceramic thimble that served as a mixing bowl. He worked quietly, whisking a single egg, a spoonful of flour, a dash of milk. The ritual was calming, his hands knowing the motions.
Mavis climbed out onto the counter, his tiny feet cool on the laminate. He sat, tail wrapped around his legs, watching the proceedings with solemn interest. The tsss of batter hitting the hot, buttered surface of the tiny skillet was a satisfying sound. Travis waited, counted, then with a deft flick of his wrist, flipped the silver-dollar-sized pancake. It landed perfectly, a golden-brown disc.
“Show-off,” Mavis said, but his eyes were bright.
Travis slid the finished pancake onto a bottle cap that served as a plate, adding a smear of butter no larger than a pea. He set it before Mavis. “Bon appétit.”
Mavis didn’t need cutlery. He picked up the warm, pliable disc with both hands and took a careful bite from the edge. His ears flicked forward. “Crispy edges. Fluffy middle. A triumph.”
Travis nodded, leaning back against the counter. He crossed his arms, watching Mavis eat, finding a strange, quiet solace in the completeness of the tiny meal. He took another sip of water. His own plate on the counter was empty. The bread in the bag looked like papier-mâché. The idea of chewing anything felt like a monumental task.
Mavis finished his pancake, licking butter from his fingers. He looked from his empty bottle cap to Travis’s empty hands, to the tall glass of water that was now half-empty. His whiskers twitched.
“You’re not eating,” Mavis stated. It wasn’t a question.
Travis shrugged, the motion stirring the small passenger on his shoulder. “Not hungry. The water’s good.”
“The water is wet. It’s not food.” Mavis’s tone was light, but it had an underlying firmness, like bedrock under topsoil. He scrambled up Travis’s arm, his claws catching gently on the fabric, and positioned himself squarely on Travis’s collarbone, one small hand braced against the column of his throat.
Travis looked down at him. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” Mavis reached up and pressed his other hand flat against Travis’s cheek. The touch was startling in its directness, a pinpoint of unwavering warmth. “Your battery’s in the red. You can’t run a system on panic and tap water.” He tilted his head, his nose almost touching Travis’s stubble. “So. I’ll stay right here, a permanent, furry growth, until you take one bite of something. A cracker. A single grape. Even just toast.”
Travis held his gaze for a long moment. The resolve he’d mustered, the brittle shell he’d tried to construct around the hollow feeling, began to crack under that insistent, caring pressure. It wasn’t a demand. It was an anchor.
He let out a long, shuddering sigh, the last of the night’s resistance leaving him. “One bite.”
“One bite,” Mavis agreed, but he didn’t move from his perch.
Travis turned, Mavis riding his shoulder like a tiny, furry captain. He pulled a single slice of bread from the bag and dropped it into the toaster. The lever clicked down with a sound of finality. They waited in silence, the only sound the hum of the appliance and the faint, electric tick-tick-tick as the coils heated.
When it popped up, Travis took the warm, plain slice. He didn’t butter it. He simply tore off a corner, about the size of a postage stamp. He put it in his mouth.
It was dry. It was flavorless. It was texture without meaning. He chewed, the sound loud in his own head, and forced himself to swallow. It felt like swallowing sawdust.
But Mavis nodded, a satisfied little dip of his chin. “See? The universe didn’t end.” He finally retreated from Travis’s cheek, sliding back to his preferred spot against his neck, nestling into the hollow there. “Now you’ve got fuel for at least… three sternly worded emails. Maybe four if you use small words.”
A faint, real smile touched Travis’s lips. He threw the rest of the toast in the compost bin. The single bite sat in his stomach, a small, insignificant lump. But it was something. A concession to the physical world. To caring. To the small, warm weight on his shoulder that refused to let him fade away.
He carried Mavis back to the office, the morning stretching ahead, uncertain but no longer terrifying. The empty canvas on his tablet was just a screen. The olive oil bottle was just a bottle. And the thing in his chest was just a feeling, one he didn’t have to face on an empty stomach.
And the thing in his chest was just a feeling, one he didn’t have to face on an empty stomach.
The morning bled into a blur of pixel-pushing. Travis hunched over his tablet, redrawing a logo for a pet groomer for the eleventh time. The client wanted “less poodle, more vibe.” His coffee went cold in its chipped mug. The hollow feeling hadn’t gone anywhere; it just sat behind his ribs, a silent passenger. He was aware of Mavis’s absence, a different kind of quiet in the room, until a faint skittering in the wall announced his return.
A tiny shadow resolved itself on the edge of the keyboard. Mavis held a single, perfect goldfish cracker between both hands, like he was presenting a sacred tablet. It gleamed under the desk lamp.
“Calorie delivery,” Mavis announced. He placed it deliberately on the spacebar. “Don’t let it swim away.”
Travis stared at the orange fish. Its cheesy smell was faint but distinct. “I’m in the zone,” he mumbled, not moving.
“You’re in the stubborn-bastard zone. Eat the fish, Travis.” Mavis’s tail tapped a rapid, impatient beat on the keycap. “Or I’ll describe its little gills in vivid detail until you do.”
Travis picked up the cracker. It was salty. It dissolved into paste on his tongue. He swallowed. “Happy?”
“Ecstatic.” Mavis vanished back into the wall.
The work resumed. The poodle became more abstract, less a dog and more a suggestion of fluff. Travis lost himself in the curves, the world narrowing to the screen’s glow. His throat grew dry, a scratching irritation. He ignored it, chasing a line that wouldn’t behave.
An hour later, a familiar weight dropped onto his socked foot, then climbed swiftly up his leg. Mavis scaled the desk like a cliff face, a single, plump green grape held triumphantly in his mouth by the stem. He spat it gently onto the tablet’s screen, right over the poodle’s face.
Travis blinked. “I’m working.”
“You’re dehydrating.” Mavis pointed a claw at the empty water glass. “The grape is hydration with benefits. Also, your poodle looks constipated.”
“It’s avant-garde.” Travis plucked the grape from the screen. It was cool and firm. He popped it in his mouth, the sweet burst startling. He hadn’t realized how acidic his mouth had become. He chewed, the juice a sharp contrast to the dusty cracker. “There.”
“Halfway there.” Mavis hopped onto the glass and peered in. “Liquid now. The other half.”
With a sigh, Travis pushed back from the desk. The chair wheels groaned. He padded to the kitchen, Mavis riding on his shoulder, and refilled the glass from the tap. He drank it all in one long, continuous pull, the cold water a shock that cleared the static from behind his eyes. He refilled it again.
“See?” Mavis said, his voice close to Travis’s ear. “Systems require maintenance.”
Back at the desk, the work felt different. Less like wading through mud. He finished the groomer’s logo, sent it off, and immediately opened a new file before the anxiety could circle back. He started sketching shapes, nothing client-related, just patterns. They felt soothing.
A while later, a tiny piece of something landed on his wrist. It was a corner of a wheat cracker, dotted with a seed. Travis didn’t look up from his growing geometric garden. He picked it off his skin and ate it. It was dry, earthy. Good.
“Water’s low,” a voice called from the top of the monitor.
Travis drank without protest.
The afternoon sun slanted across the floor, heating the linoleum. Travis worked, and the interventions came like gentle tides. A fragment of apple, skin still on, deposited neatly next to his mouse. A single, roasted almond appearing on his knee. Each time, he consumed the offering. Each time, Mavis would remind him of the glass with a tap or a word.
It was never a meal. It was sustenance in pieces, a dismantling of the huge, daunting task of feeding himself into a series of simple, executable commands handed to him by a friend. The hollow space in his chest didn’t fill, but it got quieter, padded by these small, concrete acts of care.
The final delivery came as the light began to turn golden. Mavis clambered up, slower now, and dropped a single chocolate chip onto the open spiral of Travis’s notebook. It was slightly melted from being carried.
“Last one,” Mavis said, his own energy seeming spent. “The dinner shift is yours to figure out.”
Travis looked at the chip, then at Mavis. He saw the careful focus in the tiny face, the genuine exhaustion. This had been Mavis’s work today, every bit as demanding as his own. This constant monitoring, this retrieval, this insistence on his well-being.
He didn’t say thank you. The words felt too small, too formal for the economy of cracker fragments and grapes they’d built.
He picked up the chocolate chip. It was sweet, rich, a definitive period at the end of the day’s strange sentence. He finally pushed away from the desk, his body stiff but his mind clearer than it had been in days. The water glass was half-full. He looked at it, then at the small, furry figure now curled on the warm spot above the laptop’s fan.
“Okay,” Travis said, his voice firm. “My turn.” He stood, his knees popping, and headed for the kitchen. He opened the fridge. He looked inside. The act felt less impossible. The hollow feeling was still there, but it was no longer the only thing he could feel. He could also feel the ghost of salt on his lips, the cool memory of water, and the specific weight of being watched over.
He could also feel the ghost of salt on his lips, the cool memory of water, and the specific weight of being watched over. The refrigerator hummed, a low, companionable sound. He stared into its bright interior, at the condiments and the block of cheese and the forgotten leftovers.
His brain didn't offer a recipe. It presented obstacles: effort, cleanup, the threat of waste. He closed the door. He opened the bread bag again. One slice. He laid it on the worn wooden board. The knife was heavy in his hand. He cut the slice in half, a straight, decisive line through the center. Two pale rectangles.
This was manageable. Two halves. Not a whole.
He heated the small skillet, the one he used for Mavis’s pancakes. He didn't butter the bread. He placed a slice of cheddar between the two halves, a yellow rectangle on white. He placed the tiny sandwich in the dry pan. It sizzled faintly, a whisper of heat against starch.
He watched it, mesmerized by the simple transformation. The bread slowly bronzed. The cheese began to sweat, oozing a little at the seams, melting from solid to liquid surrender. The smell was straightforward, uncomplicated: toasting grain and fat. It wasn't overwhelming. It was an announcement.
He flipped it with the spatula. The other side hissed. He pressed down gently, listening to the crisp give of the crust. When he lifted it out, it was perfectly golden, a neat, compact rectangle of warmth. He cut it diagonally, out of habit, creating two small triangles. He looked at them.
Then he took the knife and carefully severed the corner from one triangle, a tiny, crispy, cheesy bite. He put it on a clean bottle cap. The rest, one and a half triangles, went on a plate. He turned off the stove. The kitchen was quiet again, holding only the fading scent of his simple act.
He walked back to the office, plate in one hand, bottle cap balanced carefully in the other. The light was soft, the blue of early evening leaking through the blinds. Mavis was right where he’d left him, a small, deep-sleeping mound of fur curled on the warm laptop, his side rising and falling with slow, tired breaths. The menace was idle, recharge finally winning over vigilance.
Travis set the bottle cap offering gently on the desk beside the sleeping form. He didn’t wake him. He sank into his desk chair, the old leather sighing. He looked at his plate. He picked up a triangle. It was warm, almost hot. He took a bite.
The crunch was shocking, a loud, personal sound in the quiet room. The cheese was a molten, salty stretch. It was too bright, too much flavor after the mute day of cracker bits and grapes. His eyes watered. He chewed. He swallowed. It was food. Real food. He’d made it. He took another bite.
He ate the entire thing, both triangles, slowly. Each bite felt like a reclamation of a basic, stolen function. He wasn't hungry, not in a starving way, but his body accepted the fuel with a quiet, cellular gratitude. He lifted a finger, caught a string of cheese, put it in his mouth.
He looked at Mavis, still asleep. He looked at the tiny, perfect corner of sandwich waiting for him. The hollow ache was still present, a familiar topography inside him, but it was no longer a cavern. It was just a room in a house where he was, finally, turning on a light. He finished the last crumb. The plate was empty.
He leaned back, his stomach full, his mind quieter than it had been in days. The screen was dark. He didn't turn it on. He just sat, listening to Mavis breathe, watching the day end through the slats in the window, feeling, for the first time in a long time, the solid weight of his own body in the chair, grounded and present and fed.
The solid feeling held. It was a new and fragile thing, this sense of occupying his own skin without static. He watched the last of the daylight bleed from silver to deep indigo beyond the blinds. Mavis slept on, a tiny engine of warmth, until the laptop’s fan finally clicked off and the surface began to cool. He stirred then, stretching his arms overhead with a minute crackle of joints, his tail uncurling. He blinked sleepily at the bottle cap offering, then at Travis, then at the empty plate.
“You ate the big pieces,” Mavis observed, his voice thick with sleep. He picked up his own tiny corner and took a neat bite.
“I did.” Travis ran a hand through his hair. “It was a weird day.”
“It was a necessary day.” Mavis finished his bite, deftly catching a crumb. “You’re less… vaporous.”
A genuine laugh, rough from disuse, escaped Travis’s chest. “Thanks. I think.”
The domestic silence that followed wasn’t strained. It was the silence of shared fatigue, of a crisis gently downgraded to manageable fatigue. Travis stood, his body protesting the long hours in the chair, but the movement felt intentional. He collected the plate and the bottle cap, carrying them to the kitchen. He washed them, the warm water on his hands another simple, anchoring sensation. He didn’t leave them in the sink.
When he returned, Mavis was sitting on the edge of the desk, grooming his whiskers. “Big plans for the evening?” he asked, a playful glint returning to his dark eyes.
“A thrilling sequel to last night’s cinematic masterpiece,” Travis deadpanned. “The Armchair: Part Two.”
“Pass. My reviews were scathing.” Mavis hopped down, traversing the desk to stand near Travis’s abandoned tablet. The screen was still dark. “You should look at your one true thing. Before you decide it wasn’t.”
Travis hesitated. The drawing felt like a exposed nerve. But the hollow ache had receded. He picked up the tablet, tapped it awake. The screen glowed, illuminating the simple sketch of the olive oil bottle and the small, watchful silhouette. It wasn’t art. It was a record. A receipt for a moment of grace.
“It’s good,” he said, mostly to himself.
“It’s true,” Mavis corrected softly. “That’s better.”
Later, under the soft light of the bathroom, Travis brushed his teeth. The mint was a shock, a violent cleanliness. He stared at his own face in the mirror. The shadows under his eyes were still there, but his gaze didn’t skitter away. It held. He looked tired, but present. He spat, rinsed, splashed cold water on his cheeks. The ritual felt less like going through motions and more like marking a transition.
He walked back into the bedroom. The overhead light was off, only the soft glow from the hallway cutting a wedge across the floor. The bed was a vast, unmade landscape. The wall, with its neatly framed hole and its smaller balcony, was a dark silhouette.
Mavis was already there, perched on the tiny wooden balcony that Travis had built for him years ago, his legs dangling over the edge. He was looking out into the room, into the human-scale darkness. Travis paused, leaning against the doorframe.
“Guard duty?” Travis asked, his voice low.
“Observation,” Mavis replied, not turning. “The view is different from here.”
Travis knew what he meant. The balcony was Mavis’s threshold, the place where his world met Travis’s. To sit there was to be in-between. To watch.
Travis moved to the bed. He pulled back the rumpled sheets. He climbed in. The cool cotton was a shock, then a relief. He settled onto his side, facing the room, his back to the empty center of the mattress. The wall was right there, a solid, breath-filled presence just inches from his spine. He could hear the faint, almost inaudible scratch of movement inside it—Mavis shifting, the whisper of his nest.
He closed his eyes. The dark behind his lids was just dark, not a swimming pit of dread. He breathed in. Out. The scent of his own soap, the faint, dusty smell of the house, the unique, dry-grass scent that meant Mavis was near.
He heard the soft shift from inside the framed hole, not the one on the balcony, but the main entrance to Mavis’s bedroom. Then a quiet scurrying across the inside of the wall, a path worn through insulation and wood. It stopped right behind the headboard, at the spot Travis knew by heart. A moment of silence. Then a single, deliberate tap-tap-tap, knuckles on drywall from the other side, right by his ear.
Their old signal. I’m here. You’re there. All’s well.
A wave of something thick and warm broke over Travis’s ribs. He lifted his own hand, pressed his palm flat against the wall, right over the sound. He tapped back, twice. Okay.
He didn’t turn over. He didn’t face the hole. He kept his back to the wall, a deliberate boundary, but he left his hand there, his fingers splayed against the cool paint, feeling the vibration of the tiny life on the other side settling in. He was facing the room. He was facing the open dark. He was not hiding. He was anchored.
That night, Travis still sleeps against the wall, but his back is to it and not the room.