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excerpt from the introduction to Nine Lives Last Forever
"Rupert's fuzzy white body meandered sleepily across the Green Vase showroom. With each step, the soft padding on the soles of his feet squished against the creak, wood flooring.
Wreek. Wroight. Wreek. Wroight.
He squeaked across to the far side of the room, taking care to rub his neck and shoulder against the corner of a bookcase he passed along the way.
The first rays of early morning light were beginning to pierce the pre-dawn fog and shine through the wall of windows that lined the storefront, causing the green vase
icon inlaid into each square pane of glass to gleam brightly.
Rupert stepped gingerly through the shadows, carefully avoiding the beams of light that stretched across the floor until he stopped in front of a particularly wide swath of sunlight. His chunky white feet kneaded a loose floorboard as he considered his selection.
Wreek. Wroight. Wreek. Wroight.
This was it—the perfect spot. Rupert prepared himself to take the plunge.
He shook his head, setting off a violent vibration that spread throughout his entire body. A snowstorm of loose hair floated up into the air before drifting down onto the surrounding surfaces. Now suitably fluffed, Rupert smacked his lips together and stretched his mouth open to its widest yawn.
Still standing on the shadow's edge, he pulled all four feet
in under his pillowy stomach and prepared to launch. His long fluffy tail waved back and forth as he focused on the selected beam of light.
At long last, Rupert lunged forward onto the sunlit floorboard. In a single smooth motion, he rolled over onto his left shoulder and flipped a right paw up and over his head—perfectly beaching his pudgy form so that the brightest section of sunlight baked the paunch of his upturned stomach.
Rupert heaved out a deep satisfied sigh, the pouches of skin above his mouth whiffling gently as he expelled the air. A look of intense satisfaction spread across his furry face as his eyelids narrowed into slits.
It takes a great deal of skill and training to achieve such an immediate state of complete relaxation...."