I was standing in the kitchen trying to make breakfast and a halfway decent cup of coffee when I first started paying attention to John Mercer’s snoring. Normally I can tune it out. After living with someone for years, certain sounds just become part of the background. The refrigerator hums. The pipes make weird noises. Mr. Whiskers occasionally launches himself off furniture for reasons known only to him. John snores. It’s just part of life. But that morning, something about it felt different. Mr. Whiskers seemed to think so too. He wandered into the kitchen, wrapped himself around my legs, and then stopped abruptly in the doorway. His ears twitched. He stared into the living room where John was sleeping on the couch. Then he looked at me. Then back at John. It was the sort of look that makes you think a cat knows something you don’t, which is an unsettling feeling because cats already act like they’re withholding important information.
The snoring rolled through the apartment again. It wasn’t a normal snore. It sounded mechanical somehow, as though John had swallowed a malfunctioning lawn mower. One moment it was a low rumble. The next it became a sharp whistle. Then it dropped into a growling vibration that seemed capable of loosening drywall screws. I poured myself a cup of coffee and tried to ignore it, but every few seconds the sound changed. Eventually curiosity got the better of me. I walked into the living room and studied John from a safe distance. He looked perfectly normal. One arm hung off the couch. His mouth was slightly open. He showed no signs whatsoever of being involved in anything suspicious. Then the snoring stopped completely. The silence lasted just long enough for me to relax before a sudden blast erupted from him that nearly caused me to spill my coffee. Mr. Whiskers bolted down the hallway. John never moved.
That was when I noticed the pattern. Three short snores. Pause. Two long snores. Pause. One short snore. I frowned. A minute later it happened again. Three short. Two long. One short. The exact same sequence. I set my coffee down and listened carefully. A third repetition followed. Now, I’m not saying I immediately jumped to a ridiculous conclusion. I’m saying I arrived at that conclusion through a careful and methodical process that took almost thirty seconds. John Mercer was transmitting a message. I grabbed a notepad from the kitchen table and began writing down the sequence. Mr. Whiskers eventually returned and sat nearby, watching with intense interest. Every time the pattern repeated, I added more notes. Soon I had arrows, diagrams, and what might generously be called a decoding system. By that point I was completely invested. There was no turning back. Either I was about to uncover a hidden secret, or I was documenting the mental collapse brought on by too much coffee.
Twenty minutes later I reached a breakthrough. The message, once decoded, was remarkably clear.
MORE TUNA.
I stared at the paper. Then I slowly turned toward Mr. Whiskers. Mr. Whiskers stared back. Neither of us said anything. A few moments later the snoring pattern changed. I hurriedly updated my notes and worked through the new sequence. The second message was shorter.
NO. THE GOOD TUNA.
This time Mr. Whiskers blinked at me. Once. Slowly. I don’t care what anyone says. That cat knew exactly what was happening.
At that moment the front door opened and Pandora stepped inside carrying a grocery bag. She stopped when she saw me standing in the living room holding a notepad while staring back and forth between a sleeping roommate and an orange cat. She looked at me for several seconds before speaking.
“Hal, what are you doing?”
“Decoding John’s snoring.”
Pandora closed her eyes. Not dramatically. Not angrily. Just the weary expression of someone who had encountered this sort of thing before.
“And what have you discovered?”
“It appears that Mr. Whiskers is using John as some kind of communication relay.”
Pandora stood silently for a moment. Then she looked at the notebook. She read the translation. Then she looked at Mr. Whiskers. The cat immediately sat down and adopted the expression of someone who had never done anything wrong in his entire life.
“Hal,” she said carefully, “you know cats can’t communicate through sleeping roommates, right?”
I glanced at Mr. Whiskers. Mr. Whiskers glanced at John. John released a snore that sounded suspiciously like an annoyed sigh.
Pandora shook her head and headed toward the kitchen. “You’re overthinking again.”
Maybe she was right. Maybe I was reading far too much into a perfectly ordinary situation. Maybe John was just sleeping. Maybe Mr. Whiskers wasn’t secretly transmitting requests through human sonar. Maybe there was no mystery at all. That theory held up surprisingly well until later that afternoon. John was awake and making himself a sandwich in the kitchen when Mr. Whiskers trotted over and sat beside him. The cat looked up and meowed twice. John didn’t even glance down.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I know. The good tuna.”
Then he opened the expensive can.
I nearly dropped my coffee. John froze. Mr. Whiskers froze. For several seconds nobody moved. Then John slowly looked at me.
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
I looked at him. I looked at the cat. Then I looked at the notebook still sitting on the counter.
“I knew you were snoozing for a reason.”
Neither of them has given me a satisfactory explanation since.