My brother Darrel and I were fiercely competitive. He usually won every contest, physical or mental, and had more of a ruthless drive than I did. He was very calculating. I'd be the sneaky one to come back later and exact my revenge on him in silence, in the shadows...a terrorist ninja type. I'm sure you have one living in your neighborhood...after all, my hero was Batman. To this day I am fascinated with that character. I was evil but no one outside of the family knew it. At school and everywhere else I was a sweet little boy...very shy and very quiet. Inside I was Satan...wanting blood.
But I loved Brighteyes my cat, more than anything in the world. More than anyone in the family I loved this cat. And since my parents didn't believe in keeping him inside or giving him vaccinations I used to worry myself to death that he would be killed or catch rabies and die. Of course my parents would say,"He's just a cat". He was more than a cat to me. My feelings were very parental...I wanted to protect him. I used to do tornado drills to see how quickly I could run outside, grab him, and take him to our basement. The midwest was notorious for tornadoes and I was terrified of them, losing many hours of sleep at night praying for them to leave.