The air was cool after the cat rain. I slept soundly that night.

I dreamed of a cat tunneling out of my ear, expanding all the while, faster than the eye could see. Dark-brown fur with scattered strands of gold. In the dream, I called him Doughball.

Doughball and I got on right away. He didn’t show any fear and kept pulling pranks on me. His expansion was out of control, and for a while, I was worried he would grow too large for the room to contain him. Could Doughball’s belly, round as it was, be filled with some kind of gas? I thought of pricking it with a needle to see if it would deflate but couldn’t bring myself to. After all, when I stroked Doughball, he was a flesh-and-blood cat—I didn’t want to hurt him. And so I just let him inflate, bouncing around like a rubber ball.

Each day, Doughball went through his repertoire of tricks: flying leaps, high jumps, tail-biting, chasing himself. He was a springy thing, and I kept failing to catch him. Trying to make him stop, I had to chase him around the entire flat, jumping up and down like a monkey.

Doughball reached the size of a television and abruptly stopped growing. I put my hand to my chest and let out a sigh of relief. Phew.

Even though Doughball was no longer expanding, he was still several times the size of a regular cat and ate an extravagant amount. Our household expenses soared thanks to the bottomless pit that was his stomach. Husband grumbled that his wages were all going to Doughball. Yet when Doughball had eaten his fill and lay next to Husband, legs flopping in every direction, Husband was so delighted he couldn’t stop beaming. So cute, he would murmur, forgetting his grievance.

Doughball scampered around in front of me each day, his frolicking as entertaining as any TV program. Husband and I had fallen out of the habit of watching television several years ago, but Doughball made us remember what it was like to settle down together in front of a show. Every episode was directed and performed by Doughball. We watched him climb, leap, run like a mad thing. Rather simple and repetitive programming, but we never tired of it. Watching Doughball perform became our regular postprandial pastime.

After each show, Doughball had to eat in order to replenish his strength and round out his belly again. Sometimes he would then nestle against my chest for a nap, snoring loudly. I enjoyed our snuggling, but his bulk pressed down on me till I could hardly breathe. “Get off,” I would say. “You’re too heavy!” He invariably ignored me and stayed put, though I sometimes wondered if he was just pretending to be asleep.

When I woke up from this dream, my chest felt warm, and I was sure that was where Doughball had been.