You can only hold so much, even if your cheeks are cavernous.

You can only hold so much, even if your cheeks have earned you the name “Cheeks.”

There is not a cat alive who scores less than 100% on the Handsomeness Test administered by Tabby’s Place. But ambitious individuals are always asking if there’s extra credit.

The answer is, “yes.”

The answer is, “just show us a face that looks like a flotation device.”

With apologies to the assorted chipmunks, gerbils, and miscellaneous hard-working rodents of the world, we have met the fairest cheeks on seven seas. The cheeks of Cheeks could hold cantaloupes. The cheeks of Cheeks could hold cargo vans.

But the cheek of Cheeks is rather meek.

Although he has ample room for sass (with extra space for Saturn and several Subarus), Cheeks is a bewildered balloon. You can hardly blame him. A cat does not live on handsomeness alone, and “alone” can drain the color from the most courageous face.

When we met him, Cheeks had just met the Great Emptiness. I know I do not need to formally introduce you. We have all crawled through that canyon, and it gnashes its teeth at the brave and the brittle.

Fingers should have stroked soft rivers in Cheeks’ fur. They should have poured promises like gravy, leaving this bashful mashed potato fat and full. Instead, gnarled fingers clanged the cage door shut. They crunched away through the lifeless leaves. And they left the meek Cheeks slack-jawed with sorrow.

Now it’s time to inherit the earth. Or at least all the livestock. (Pity the Brontosaurus is off the menu.)

This will take considerable cheekiness. Grief clapped its cold hands over Cheeks’ cheeks, and he’s still trying to catch his breath from that icy puff of air. He huddles in the back of his cubby, spelunking the questions.

I tell him what I believe, that the days ahead are bloated with blessings and beef pate. I believe his life has front-loaded the sad, the better to get it all behind him. The fullness to come will make a fool of the Great Emptiness.

Cheeks burrows under his blanket, as though he could hide his handsome face.

I tell him that the hollows have made him heroic. I tell him about Laurel Canyon, where Joni Mitchell and Neil Young once wrote songs that outran the void. I get him to agree that he has a heart of gold. I write him lullabies about a big yellow taxi full of turkeys.

Cheeks hides in my elbow and asks what happens when the music stops.

I tell him that a cat with caverns in his face will always have breath to whistle his own tune. I tell him that the deepest caves grow jewels from floor and ceiling, stalactites and stalagmites, and jaunty bats dance from deep dark to diamond dawn.

Cheeks says bats sound delicious. Cheeks asks if I will notify management that he has requested bat gravy. Not the canned stuff. It has to be homemade.

Cheeks cuddles and casts caution to the wind.

Cheeks has found the happy land where he is held in the hollow of love’s hand.

Cheeks is getting cheeky, turning as pink as the promises that are not going anywhere.

And when his adopter inevitably arrives,* they can hang Cheeks’ extra credit on the fridge with a heart magnet.

*Inevitability hath inevitabled. That’s right: Cheeks is rubbing his cheeks against the hands and faces that will love him forever. Rather sassy to do so between my writing and your reading, but cheeky is as cheeky does.