“I don’t know what all the fuss is about, actually.” Jones lifted his right hand in front of his face and regarded his palm, displeased.

His eyes still twinkled in his head like almond stars; the corners of his mouth curved upward in a cruel, sneering smile. Again he turned those beautiful, bright eyes towards me.

“You’ll still feed me of course,” he said authoritatively, “but none of that canned nonsense, I’d favour fresh meat. I can still catch it, but you must prepare it for me. I fear the constitution of a people may not be up to much.”

“Jones I’m a vegetarian,” I protested somewhat pathetically, “I can feed you the meat from the cans but if you want more than that you’ll have to prepare it yourself.” Jones looked disgruntled. “And you certainly can’t just go around killing things now if you’re a human, it just won’t do.”

My head was spinning. The feet of the wooden kitchen chair scraped piercingly as I slumped heavily into it. I rubbed my aching brow with both hands and looked up again, in disbelief, at the impossible figure before me.

He was tall and lithe. He certainly didn’t look like a cat any more, but there was something that was quite more than human about him too. His eyes looked annoyed and slightly wild. As he glared at me the look changed from anger to pity.

“Silly people,” he spat the words through gritted teeth, “I’ll bring you meat and you’ll prepare it, that is what will happen.” He nodded curtly, satisfied at his own solution to what had seemed for a moment to be a most bothersome situation. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his tight white jeans and swaggered gracefully towards the window.

Jones gazed deeply across the grass, which was in need of a good haircut, towards the fence that divided ours from the neighbour’s garden. “I always knew this would happen,” he said after a deep breath, “evolution you see.” He turned casually to face me and mischief sparkled in his eyes. “I’m evolving, you see,” he announced, puffing his chest out with pride. I swallowed my laugh and listened on astounded at his boastful reproach. “Yes, people, you have reached the end of your journey. You can grow no more,” he scoffed, “we will be taking things from here.” He turned slowly again to the window and continued the speech without looking at me. “We will bring you the food and you will prepare it. You will tickle our ears and care for us or you will be the food.”

I was dumbfounded, I could not find the words to respond to this, and Jones was not going to give me the opportunity anyway. “Now,” he continued, turning to me somewhat dismissively, “if you’ll excuse me...”

I sat in the kitchen, staring into space aghast. From the utility room adjacent came the sound of scratching gravel...