Cedar Watchtower Accidentally Built for Its Rightful King

The construction took two full days, an outrageous intrusion upon my napping schedule. Great, flat boxes arrived, disgorging a bewildering array of pre-stained planks and metal bits. My staff, a pair of bumbling bipeds who usually only operate the can opener, spent hours consulting a glowing rectangle and making loud, percussive noises. I watched from the safety of the window, my tail twitching in irritation. They were erecting a wooden beast in my yard, a crude temple to some god of pointless motion. The scent of cedar was strong, a sharp, clean smell that almost—almost—made up for the cacophony. Once the clumsy builders retreated indoors for their celebratory grunting, I began my reconnaissance mission. Under the cover of twilight, I moved like a gray shadow across the lawn. The structure loomed over me, smelling of freshly disturbed earth and that pleasant wood. I circled its base, sniffing the support beams with a critical nose. The two dangling seats swayed slightly in the breeze, an invitation to undignified flailing I would never accept. The so-called "rock wall ladder" was an insult to my agility; such obvious handholds were for amateurs. My gaze, however, was drawn upward to the covered platform, the fortress keep of this new installation. That was the prize. Ignoring the laughably simple routes, I chose my own path. A nearby garden wall provided the perfect launching point. A silent leap, a scrabble of claws on wood, and I was up. The world looked different from here. The canopy roof, made of some sort of mesh, cast a delightful, shifting pattern of shadows on the floorboards. I was elevated, unseen, the master of all I surveyed. I could see the insolent squirrel on the far fence, the pathetic attempts at flight from the fledgling robins in the oak tree, even the top of my human's head as they moved about inside the house. This was not a play deck; it was a throne room. A watchtower. An outdoor office. The small humans arrived the next day. I watched from my perch as they swarmed the lower levels, their shrieks of delight a minor annoyance from my lofty position. They could have their slippery slide and their swinging chairs. They could deface the "chalkboard" with their primitive scrawls. It mattered not. They were ground-dwellers, oblivious to the true power this structure held. I kneaded the warm, sun-drenched wood of my new observation post, closed my eyes, and began a truly superior nap. The human had, in their typical roundabout and noisy fashion, built me a worthy pedestal. It would do.