Response to "Cats"

Rhamah, I really like your writing style.  Great story.  This story seems to follow a main character who is the narrator and works at an animal shelter, particularly one for cats.  One day a family comes in to possibly buy a cat.  The family consists of a father, mother, and daughter.  They do not seem like the type of people who would even like a cat, especially the mother.  The daughter picks out a cat but can't get it.  The father doesn't like that it has only one eye. The owner really tries to sell a cat to the family. The main character seems to dislike the owner.  The owner comes off as a salesman (saleswoman I guess I should say) to me.  She doesn't care about where the cats go, just as long as she can get rid of them.  I feel like the narrator picks up on this after the owner, or the Cat Lady, says that the visitors who didn't take any cats would have provided a good home: "No, they wouldn’t, I want to say to her. They would have hated a cat. The man with his wrinkled nose and the woman with her fear of hair and the little girl with no respect for claws or lost eyes would have hated any cat, even one as perfect for a family as Lily."  Lily is an unusually friendly cat that the narrator seems to be fond of.  When a young man, about fourteen, walks into the shelter, he comments that he's looking for a cat that could get along with a dog.  Lily used to live with dogs so the narrator invites the boy to look at her.  Lily acts out of character for a moment and bites the boy.  The boy is deterred from buying the cat and asks about the kittens that were brought in at the beginning of the story, and is even willing to wait until they are healthy enough to be given away.  To me this story seems to say something about the imperfections of people.

I like the way you write Rhamah.  The dialogue seemed great and your descriptions were mostly clear and invited my attention.  I like the idea of peering into what it is like to work at animal shelter like this.  It is an opportunity to say a lot about people's unachievable standards for others or for the feeling of rejection and loneliness.

I don't really understand the wants of any particular character, though.  I feel like the plot is weak as a result of a clear path.  I think you should work on the relationship between conflict and desires of the main character or any character.