The cat sat on the mat.

He was comfortable, and totally unaware of any rhyme. As far as the cat was concerned, that was the end of the story. He was quite happy with where he had chosen to sit. I mean, as far as mats went, he'd sat on better ones. Haven't we all? He certainly wasn't running a mat grading system through his head. Truth be known, he wasn't really thinking of much at all.

The man who also lived in the house was named Tent Horn.

He wondered about lots of things but, funnily enough, never his own name.

Tent had started life as a Presbyterian but had converted to Catholicism in his late teens. For him the Catholic church had all the right answers. 

There were a few that he swore by (hey, that's just a popular phrase, he didn't really swear):

• The Bible is the inspired, error-free, and revealed word of God.
• Baptism, the rite of becoming a Christian, is necessary for salvation — whether the Baptism occurs by water, blood, or desire.
• God’s Ten Commandments provide a moral compass — an ethical standard to live by.
• The existence of the Holy Trinity — three people in one God.
• Mary, the mother of God, ascended into Heaven.

The cat on the mat showed no interest in any of these concepts.

The cat had once chewed on a bible that he found on a coffee table.

Tent had not been pleased and broke into some big words. See, big words were one of Trent's favourite things - he loved the word 'transubstantiation'! He also found that you could win arguments by using big words. This is probably why he automatically used them to growl at the cat. 

He wondered later if the cat had somehow been controlled by Satin. Maybe Satin had entered the cat? But then the cat would have probably talked in English, "God didn't write this book. A group of primitive men did and used ideas from their own time to set out many of the laws. That's why the book mentions slaves, among other things."

Sometimes Tent wished he'd never got a cat. He sometimes 'jokingly' called the cat Pagan. Maybe if he prayed, for Mary to bless the cat, everything would be okay?

The cat's actual name was Pius. He'd been named after a pope. It was a bit saddening that Pius showed no signs of being pious. Still, one could argue that Pius didn't seem to judge people. He just acted like a cat. Isn't that what cats are supposed to do? Unless, of course, they are possessed by Satan.

Throughout the writing of this post, the cat sat on the mat.