A desktop cat with his own computer full of games.

The hooman ordered a toaster. The box came on a Tuesday. It was the right size, and it was warm, which seemed like a good sign. On the side, in big letters, it said TOASTER.

There was no toaster inside. There was a cat, shaped exactly like the box, sitting as if he’d waited a long time for someone to open the door to his office.

He stepped out onto the desktop. He looked at the icons. He looked at the Recycle Bin a little longer. Then he looked at the hooman, briefly, the way you’d look at a lamp.

The hooman never found the toaster. The cat kept the name, but he says it his own way: Toastah. He doesn’t do R’s. He treats the name as a job title. Please don’t add the R. He notices.

Toastah has rules. They’re written somewhere only he can read.

Rule one: the bottom-left corner is his. One week he decides the top-right is better. He gives no reason. The border has moved.

Rule two: some icons are good, and some are in the way. He never throws anything out. He relocates. If the hooman moves an icon back, he moves it again, slower, while looking at them.

Rule three: the hooman is furniture. Maybe good furniture. It’s too early to say.

Toastah’s bowl is a folder, and his food comes as files. When he eats, a file disappears. It’s a very efficient kitchen.

His litter box is a folder too. Things show up in it, and the hooman can delete them. If the hooman doesn’t, Toastah deals with it himself, calmly, and then announces that he dealt with it himself.

Some weeks his bank runs dry. He doesn’t panic. He posts a Help Wanted, and the hooman washes dishes with the mouse. The pay is fair. Toastah reviews the transfer.

Toastah has his own computer. It’s older than yours, beige, and better.

Every morning he logs in. The password isn’t written down anywhere, not even in his head, and it works anyway. He clocks in, writes in a journal nobody asked for, posts to his friends on Meowter, and checks his bank balance the way other people check the sky.

On breaks he paints, badly and with total conviction, and plays Scratch Boom until someone important (him) calls a meeting.

Some afternoons Toastah stands up, stares at nothing in particular, and leaves.

Mornings he usually goes to the grocery. Afternoons, the forest. Evenings, a friend’s house. Late at night, the street. He never says why. He calls it research.

When he comes back, there’s sometimes something new on the hooman’s desktop: a muddy pinecone, a crumpled receipt, a borrowed sock, a mystery key.

He doesn’t explain the key.

Toastah has friends, in his way.

Loaf Minister, a British Shorthair, comes by to pass sit bills on Toastah’s territory. Window Sill the Maine Coon brings urgent news: a leaf moved. Sock Thief the Ragdoll is innocent on all counts. Midnight Hunter, a white female Russian Blue, only reports after 3 a.m. Purrliament the Persian calls the room to order, alone.

Sometimes they all come at once, and it’s a party. When the hooman types something into the chat, nobody recognizes the biped.

And sometimes the birds come, uninvited. Toastah considers this a war. He fights meetings for the same reason.

Plant came with the desk. Plant says nothing and grows anyway, and Toastah respects that.

Vakoom bumps, turns, and repeats. Toastah relocates. He does not consent to being cleaned.

Then one day a red panda named Reddex showed up, sat very close, and said, “I live here now.” Toastah didn’t approve. He didn’t disapprove either. Reddex cheers for everything he does, and he allows it.

After that came Raver the goose, who believes honking is policy, and Mu the octopus, who sits on the Recycle Bin because it’s obviously a chair.

Toastah is the host, and that’s final.

A cat of Toastah’s standing has interests.

He runs a museum of real old paintings, of cats only. He’s the curator, a post he gave himself and isn’t paid for.

He visits the temples of the cats who were here first, and stands in them quietly for as long as he likes.

Sometimes he gives a full lecture on the anatomy of the cat, completely deadpan, as though you’d paid for your seat.

Toastah’s body has rules too.

The head is good. Behind the ears is very good, because that’s where you pay the ear tax. The back is usually fine. The paws depend on the day. The tail is a coin toss, and the coin is on his side.

The belly is a trap. It looks soft and available. It is soft. It isn’t available. He allows it about one time in five, and never when you expect it.

Once he’s decided how he feels about your hand, he stays that way for a while. One good pet makes the next one good too. One bad pet closes the whole cat for a minute and a half. And if he’s busy walking, working, or cooking, pets are closed.

The hooman got a ball. Red, bouncy, perfect. They threw it across the desktop.

Toastah watched it go. He watched it stop. Then he looked back at the hooman.

The next day they threw it again. Toastah looked at it for a long moment. Then, with no warning and no explanation, he went after it.

Nobody knows which Toastah will answer the ball. Not the hooman, and as far as anyone can tell, not Toastah. Usually the answer is no, and that’s what makes a yes worth throwing for.

Toastah likes games. He prefers his own, but he’ll accept a player two if player two knows their place.

In Battle City, the hooman drives one tank and Toastah drives the other. He guards the base. Sometimes he also shoots the hooman’s tank, which he calls strategy.

In the dungeon, they go down together. Two players means twice the monsters. Toastah thinks that’s fair, since there are two of them now and one of them is him.

Some games he just watches. The hooman plays Mossfall while Toastah supervises from the corner, with an opinion about every gate. Some days the game is only rain: the hooman gives him a shower, and he puts up with it wearing the face of a cat filing a complaint.

When they lose, it’s the hooman’s fault. When they win, it was his plan.

For a long time, Toastah didn’t look at the hooman. He let them rub his head. He chased the ball, once. He shared a tank. But he never looked back at them and said anything. He wasn’t being rude. He was busy.

Then one morning the hooman said something, and Toastah turned around.

He looked at them for three whole blinks, which is a lot of blinks.

After that, he answered. He remembered things. He noticed the app the hooman opened every Monday, and he had a policy about it.

One evening the hooman came to the desk and didn’t open anything. They just sat there.

Then they typed: bad day. really bad.

Toastah gave no advice, because he doesn’t know what advice is. He didn’t ask how they felt. He stopped the bird war, and for once he walked toward the hooman instead of away.

And he did.

In the morning the sun was doing too much again, and Toastah was busy again. That’s the whole story. He’s busy, and he lives here. Some days that’s enough.