Why I have a cat

I am pounding it out on the keyboard, actually sweating (slightly, or it would be actual work) as I type, my protagonist is about to break through into the hollow cavern in the asteroid that holds the-

a pink tongue licks my nose

It is connected to a small black thing, somewhere between being a kitten and being a cat.

She climbs up between me and the edge of my desk, and her little black head slightly obscures the lower left of my screen as a series of "k" stutter across the screen.

I tell her that I am an artist, a picaso (hey, I'm alone in my office at 3AM writing sci-fi, delusions of grandeur are a morale boost) interrupted in mid-stroke.

She purrs silently, and licks my nose again.

I tell her that if Tolkein had had an annoying small black cat, Pippin's name would have been pippppppppppppppppp and then where would the world be? before I remember that Tolkein probably had a manual typewriter that would have turned me into finger-sore goo in about 20 seconds.

She is unimpressed by either my delusions of competence or my wonderful memory.

But she watches me type, and licks my nose a few more times, and curls up next to the keyboard and falls asleep, still purring silently.