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Start or end your story with a cat or another animal stuck in a tree.

Posted in Short Story on Oct 31, 2025

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✍️ 40 stories

Breaking Ground

Submitted to Contest #327

The cat is in the tree again.Midnight—because of course the cat is named Midnight—sits on a branch about twenty feet up, tail wrapped around her paws, watching Meredith with that expression that says she knows exactly what she's doing.Three years since her mother died. Three years since the cat appeared on the back porch like an inheritance. Three years of this dance—the tree, the waiting.Meredith stands at the base of the old oak, hands trembling."Come down," she says.Midnight blinks slowly. Doesn't move."I have work to do. I'm in the middl...

29 likes 13 comments 13
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The Duke of Elgin Mews

Submitted to Contest #327

Duke was humiliated. To be cornered so completely by his own hubris…it was shameful. He looked down through the gnarled branches at the hard ground, so very far below and rumbled displeasure at the back of his throat. It had been bird. Simply a bird, that had been his undoing. One he had never seen before. Bright, shining and so exotic he had salivated over its imagined taste. But it had been a trap. The dazzling beauty had lured him higher and higher, until he was too far gone. Then it had simply fluttered away into the sky, turning to a do...

20 likes 8 comments 8
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Ayla's Magpie Heist

Submitted to Contest #327

Ayla looked down. How, in all the purring galaxies, had she climbed this high? The tree hadn’t seemed that tall from the window, more of a polite shrub, really. But from her current perch, the garden stretched below like an alien planet, and the lawn ornaments looked suspiciously like distant asteroids. The ground was far, far away. Too far for a dignified leap. She dug her claws into the bark, tail twitching in what she would later describe as “contemplative stillness” (and the humans would call “mild panic”). Below her stood the female hum...

19 likes 20 comments 20
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Of all unlikely places

Shortlisted for Contest #327 ⭐️

Really, Gabby thought, it wasn't the worst day she'd ever had on the job. Not really. Not if you counted the day the meerkats got into the gift shop and made off with the giant lollipops. The care and keeping of a meerkat on a sugar high wasn't anything her college courses had prepared her for.The day had started pretty well, actually. Tom had finally agreed to let her help with the penguin show, and then she'd done such a good job - well, that's what she'd inferred from his gruff "you'll do" - that he'd let her take Linus on his walk - his ...

17 likes 9 comments 9
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Frank in a tree

Submitted to Contest #327

Hello,I don't know if you are aware, but I can see you making silly faces at me through the glass doors. You want me to come over to the glass and pay attention to you. Don’t you? Please be aware that I do not respond to such taunting. Well, no matter, since you're not going to leave, I've decided to tell you something very interesting that happened recently. I doubt your ability to understand my form of communication, but that is exactly why I have no problems telling you the tale. If you could understand, you might be inclined to think me ...

16 likes 4 comments 4
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Stand for the Rhino

Submitted to Contest #327

None of us wanted to deal with the rhino in the tree. Half the burgers were already burnt and the pasta salad didn’t have nearly enough vinegar in it. I like pasta salad with mayonnaise, so I wasn’t going to touch it anyway, but I had sympathy for the vinegar members of my family. My aunt kept going in and out of the house she’d rented for the long weekend, and every time she did, my uncle would yell that she was “letting the cool air out.” I took a sip of my pomegranate lemonade. From across the deck, my mother locked eyes with me and silen...

16 likes 12 comments 12
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The Weekend Warriors

Submitted to Contest #327

Carson Parr’s interests were eclectic, to say the least. Once I came out of Madson Bowl & Pin, wrist sore from my lousy hook, jaw sore from too much Laffy Taffy, to see him painting a mural of porcelain dolls and capuchin monkeys on the alley wall. On a breezy afternoon last summer, I spotted him over the fence from my lifeguard tower, sitting on a park bench staring up at an oak tree for hours. He even played an impromptu guest stint on trombone with the high school pep band at one Friday night football game. The last time I saw him, at...

11 likes 5 comments 5
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Electric Mice

Submitted to Contest #327

Do you remember your first memory? I’m not sure if I do. I’m either stuck in a tree locked in a moment of fear, or I’m eating marzipan with Pattie. I want it to be the marzipan, but it doesn’t feel right, it feels too… clear. The tree, however is chaotic—blurry, more concepts than honest memories. The tree must be my first memory because it feels less real, so much farther away than reality. Maybe it’s only fitting I end it in this very same tree, the only difference between that memory and now, is I don’t feel the fear, only cold cer...

11 likes 3 comments 3
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A Step-by-Step Guide to Ruining Your Life with a Cat (And Why You Should)

Submitted to Contest #327

The neem tree behind my building had been dying. Mishti chose it anyway. I suppose it was her nature.2 AM. My shift should've ended right now—eight hours of scripts and lies completed, commission earned. Except I never went in. Just... didn't show up. Stayed home. Turned off my phone like that would make the decision disappear.Turned it back on minutes before to find twenty-three messages.Amber eyes reflecting my phone's flashlight like tiny suns of judgment, the branch looked ready to disintegrate, my cat perched on it with the confidence o...

11 likes 1 comment 1
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Orange Cats & Fanny Packs: A Halloween Miracle

Submitted to Contest #327

“Give me a boost,” Izzie says frantically, tilting her head toward the tiny orange kitten wedged between several branches near the top of the old oak tree. Its mews are sharp and desperate, piercing through the rustling leaves and cool night air. “I know I’m currently in a Kim Possible costume,” I say, giving her my best I’m serious face, “but this is not the kind of danger I imagined when I agreed to go out with you tonight. There is no way either of us is climbing all the way up there.” “Come on, Wren,” she says, drawing out my name, putti...

10 likes 3 comments 3
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Shotgun Annie

Submitted to Contest #327

Shotgun Annie Annie’s German Shepard was loudly barking from outside, and when she went to the back door and looked out Killer was jumping against a tree truck and yelping at a distressed cat yowling somewhere in the tree. “Killer, shut up!” Annie shouted, leaning out the door as if he’d listen. “Come!” When he kept barking she put on a winter coat, slipped into snow boots and grabbed her shotgun. Outside it was snowing and the bitter wind blew off her hood. As she trudged through the knee-high snow she slung her gun over h...

9 likes 2 comments 2
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An Incomplete Guide to Feline Extraction

Submitted to Contest #327

The sound started as a thin, whiny complaint. It quickly grew into a dramatic shriek. For a moment, it seemed something terrible had happened. The sound was loud enough to shake the windows of the quiet house nearby.The source was a fluffy, ginger cat wedged in the ‘V’ of two thick branches of an ancient oak, about fifteen feet up. Its name was Marmalade, and it was, for all intents and purposes, stuck.Inside, Marvin Pickle winced. He valued quiet—treasured it, as a curator values art. As a historian, he kept his life in neat, labeled folder...

9 likes 3 comments 3
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The Cracker Rebellion: A Memoir of Sir Bear the Cat

Submitted to Contest #327

Let me begin by saying what should be obvious: I am not your average feline. I am a creature unlike any other, one of distinction and elegance. I am Sir Bear, ruler of the sundrenched windowsill, conqueror of the forbidden tabletop, and tormentor of the shaggy dog known as Lucy Loo. Lucy Loo, the dog, is a bushy-tailed, tail-wagging creature with a one-cell IQ. She lives to please. I live to rule. Our relationship is simple: she exists, and I tolerate her. Now, to the matter of the cracker. It was a Wednesday. I know this because the human...

9 likes 0 comments 0
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The View from Up There

Submitted to Contest #327

CW: Gore, suicide, mental health The look in his eyes was one of pure disdain. A look that said ‘You are beneath me and I do not care or acknowledge what you want’. A look that broached no debate, no compromise or in fact any movement at all. He could have been a statue sat there staring at me, so complete was his composure. I’d admire his commitment if it wasn’t such a massive inconvenience to my day and such a huge slap in the face. I place my hands on the sides of my head squeezing my fingers into my temples as I do so. Then I remember my...

9 likes 2 comments 2
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Lucky Cat

Submitted to Contest #327

“Don’t worry, buddy. It’s just a costume.” Meowing, he had never heard such a terrible sound. Grant didn’t hate cats. He’d never hated cats or dogs, or any kind of pet. Even now, as his arms grew tired, he wasn’t angry at this specific cat. His or her coat was a cloak of darkness, aside for a pair of piercing, blue eyes. Grant was jealous. He wished his eyes could glow. “Here, kitty.” His fingers remained stiff, just like the fake chain mail draped over his chest. The cat bent down, waving a paw toward Grant’s direction. Again, he called aft...

8 likes 0 comments 0
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