When I open my eyes in the dark morning, someone with completely dilated pupils is staring at me from eight inches away. I glance at the clock and close my eyes again, for it is forty-five minutes before I want to get up and if Louie knows I’m awake, I’m doomed. I slip uneasily halfway back into the dream I was having, and the phrase, “Everyone needs a reason to get up in the morning” drifts into my head.

Louie gets down from the bed with a thud, because he is a solid person with all the weight concentrated in his little puffy pointy feet, and he goes away for a little while. I drift off again, comfortable. It takes me a long time to stop being uncomfortable when I lie down at night, because my shoulder hurts, I have some kind of nerve problem in my right leg, and I’m getting old. Apparently, when I finally relax into sleep, those pains are allowed to escape, so by the morning I’m boneless and nerveless until I start moving again. Those minutes in the morning are precious, and inevitably brief, because of Louie.

Louie comes back into the doorway of the bedroom, a sturdy little shadow like a stubby upholstered stool, and he opens his heart-shaped mouth and utters a tiny baby wail. I keep my eyes closed. It is an overcast day, and it’s still gray outside, so I can reassure myself the dimly glowing numbers on my bedside clock tell me it is twenty minutes before I have to get up.

Well, no, I don’t have to get up, because I’m not working any more.

I used to get up early because I am not a morning person and because I needed at least an hour of puttering around in silence before I was suitable for public interaction. Now, I have nobody to be suitable for, but I get up early because I’m old and can’t sleep late. I don’t set an alarm. I don’t have to. Louie exists.

Now Louie jumps back up onto the bed and, instead of staring at me, he tries to walk on top of me, punching great doughy holes in my side with his tiny paws. I give a great twitch and shake him off. He goes back to staring at me, and he wails again. I push him off the bed, he goes to the door, and he turns and screeches like a seagull, repeatedly.

It is ten minutes before I want to get up.

I get up.

Every morning I get up early, because Louie’s patience is not eternal, and he is focused.

Now that I’m up, Louie kicks into action. He trots swiftly toward the stairs ahead of me. I take joy in slowly getting myself dressed while he runs back and forth, screaming. When I go into the bathroom, he sits in the hallway staring at his stubby tail and occasionally attempting to chase it, and then when I come out, goes back to running ahead of me. I realize I left something in the bedroom and go back to get it, and Louie, with the grim determination of Sisyphus, runs back and begins the herding process all over again. Eventually, dawdling, I make it downstairs, and give him his morning food.

I tried using an automatic feeder for a while, but Louie still came to get me up, because that’s his job.

I know that’s not how Aristotle means telos, but there you are. My purpose in life, my Aristotelian telos, is (a) to thwart Louie as much as I can and (b) to take care of Louie.

Now Louie is asleep in the armchair I bought for myself, which he thinks he owns free and clear, and I am somewhat upright and ready to face the day. Thank you, Louie.