Aries approves of people like you.

Aries approves of people.

Aries approves of you.

Aries approves.

Every cat is born pre-approved. Before their eyes open and their ears unfurl, they are worthy. There is nothing they need to do to earn love.

Nothing that can be earned is love.

But one black cat was born pre-approving. There would be none of the usual getting-to-know-you protocol for this precocious pinch of pepper. Your existence is your admission to his heart.

Just be aware that the door locks behind you.

There is an impatience about Aries’ affection, as though he feels like he is running late. As a result, he spends most of his life running back and forth across the Community Room table, attempting to anoint everyone in head bonks simultaneously.

Why waste precious seconds deciding if someone is likable, when you could just start liking them? There is no time to size people up when your heart is size XXXXXXXXXXXL.

Small talk is a slimy salad that nobody really wants. Why not leap straight into the lasagna of loving each other?

When it comes to friends, some creatures have criteria: What do you do for a living? What will you do for me? If there were one cheeseburger left on Earth, who would get it? They are reasonable questions.

But Aries has only one question: Do you exist?

Acceptable answers include “yes,” “usually,” and “I am doing the best I can.” Acceptable individuals include “everyone” and “everybody,” as well as “anyone” and “anybody” not included therein.

Maybe Aries’ approval is so breathless because he remembers running out of time.

Illness is a laser beam, red and precise. It would be easier to tell you what medical issues Aries has not experienced (scurvy, rickets, the Sunday Scaries) than to read a medical chart longer than a Cheesecake Factory menu.

He is stable nowadays, save for some creative interpretations of litter box etiquette and a stubborn skin disease that leaves his ears wrinkly and threadbare (which is to say, adorable). The sole souvenir from his walk in the dusk of death is a bobbed tail, which he wiggles like a pennant in response to everything.

He remembers his brushes with death. When you live on the far side of expectations, you cut to the chase. Every morning is a reprieve. Every kibble is a cheeseburger. Every stranger was sent to warm themselves in your light.

But there is something more going on here.

Aries chose long ago to choose everyone. (And everybody. Don’t forget everybody. Aries does not want anybody to get the idea that there is anyone excluded from everyone. This includes sea monkeys, senators, and people who believe cauliflower is a legitimate substitute for cheese.)

Aries is not just a survivor. Aries is a bonfire.

It is no coincidence that the first cat to love you is the first sign of the zodiac. In the stars, it is the ram who starts the year, confident and galloping. In the Community Room, it is the plush, pushy Aries, impatient to adore you.

He is compatible with all signs. He is incapable of keeping his cool. He is infatuated in all directions, simultaneously, which would be exhausting if he weren’t so inexhaustible.

Other fires simmer down to embers. So how does one ordinary, elderly cat, bony as kindling, burn brighter by the day?

He approves.

He approves of cats, the cuddlers and the curmudgeons. He approves when they melt into his side like marshmallows, and he approves when they frolic like flutterwheels. He approves when they exult in his affection, and he approves when they walk alone. He approves when he wakes up in the middle of a three-cat constellation, and he approves when he wakes up at all.

He approves the presence of people, and he approves the present of presence.

He approves of your arrival so emphatically, he will slide right off the edge of the table like a shuffleboard puck. He approves of you when you come bearing giblets, and he approves of you when your hands are empty.

He approves of you when you are loud as a Leo, and he approves of you when you are pensive as a Pisces. He approves of you when the stars align and you catch yourself singing “All I Do Is Win,” and he approves of you when you stagger into the Community Room just looking for a safe place to cry.

Aries approves, and approves, and approves of you, and all he asks in return is that you follow in his fiery footsteps.

Go approve some cats and people, just because they are cats and people.

See what happens.

You may be the first sign of someone’s turning tide. You may save someone’s day or someone’s life.

You may slide off the edge of the table. Being cool is overrated.

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