Fifth
The twin cats lay like parentheses on opposite ends of the room, enclosing the two humans’ whispered conversation in gentle, purring punctuation.
(“Does this mean our conversation is no more than a parenthetical aside?” Tess asked.
Gabriel answered, “All Saturday morning conversations are no more than parenthetical asides.”)
Meanwhile Reggie dozed in a flowering alfalfa field, ruminating in his sleep and dreaming of buckwheat. All around him bees droned a lazy summer lullaby, their daydreams filled with honey as they drifted on breezes that took them from one lavender-colored blossom to another.
