Is there no limit to what Rick can do?*

It is a reasonable question.

Rick can see far with the naked eye. This is despite having only one naked eye.

Rick perceives that every person is a planetarium. He will let his eye adjust until your stars come out. From the Community Room, Rick can observe the bears in the Yukon, the squid on the sea floor, and that half-second twitch of the lip that means you are afraid.

Rick can keep looking until you feel seen.

Rick can weave hours into friendship bracelets. He knows the world is a mixed-media collage. There are hot magenta threads and shreds of frayed burlap.

Rick knows every quilt is ragged. He was born with eyes as blue as Ball jars, but one was small and painful, a case of microopthalmia. Tabby’s Place saved his life and took out his bad eye.

Rick knows love is tough. He still expects everyone will be comforted.

Rick can fix the soft serve machine at McDonald’s. He prefers to render it redundant. He is a flamboyant blizzard, a cotton-candied cloud too vast for cup or cone. He is a twist of fate and flavors behind one winking blueberry eye.

He is aware of his beauty, but he is far more aware of yours.

Rick can take over for any etiquette columnist. He understands the limits of human manners. He does not seek to judge, only to educate.

Rick will guide us until we grasp the proper length of time to pet a cat. Rick will smack us in rapid succession, whap-whap-whap-whap-whap, if we cease before the task is complete. He will not use his claws.

He will be proud when we learn that the proper length of time to pet a cat is one kalpa, 4,320,000,000 years.

Rick can mend your cardigan. Rick knows about holes in the fabric of the known.

He won’t point out the mended patches on his own coat. Someone loved him. Someone left him. Someone found him outdoors, a white chocolate polar bear in rural New Jersey. It does not matter how he was torn. It only matters that life is velvet again.

At Tabby’s Place, his blue Ball jar brims with the sight of people who love him. He knows we have been torn, too. He can sew hearts up and down our sleeves. He can convince us to trust, too.

Rick can forgive. Rick has forgiven. Rick will forgive again. This is why we believe there may be no limit to what Rick Catsley can do.

Rick lives to give, even though he was given up. Rick anticipates tenderness, even though the past was gristle.

Rick does not give the silent treatment, even when we give him fewer than seven treats. He has patiently reminded us that he only eats entities in quantities matching the Pleiades. He will remind us again. He will love us uninterrupted.

Is there no limit to what Rick can do?

There is a limit.

Rick cannot give you up.
Rick cannot let you down.
Rick cannot run around and desert you.
Rick cannot make you cry.
Rick cannot say goodbye.
Rick cannot tell a lie and hurt you.

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