These are wonderful. Given the strange technical problems this site had with comments appearing and disappearing, it was a bit less curated than we had planned. But we got some fantastic contributions.

I'd love to know what you all think. Log in, use the recommend button, and use it liberally on any of the stories or bits that you like.

(Some of you may want to start at the end and come forwards, so we don't just get votes for the oldest ones.)

And I'm delighted.

It wasn't just the murder, he decided. Everything else seemed to have conspired to ruin his day as well. Even the cat.

The cat, with its accusing eyes and stares.

The cat that sat on his chest, its claws that always slightly dug in, but seeming now to be going in deeper than ever.

Rather than a friendly, comforting reassurance of normality, he felt now that they were a part of that stare, an attempt by the cat to control or dictate his next action.

It had started with the murder, continued with the lie, the inability to concentrate at work, the dropping of his lunch, the missing of his train stop and the long walk home forgetting to buy the ingredients for dinner but would end with the cat.

That growing confusion within him would have to spill out with a confession. He would have to tell his wife it was he and not the cat that had murdered her favourite sweater.

The one that was hell to hug, itchy and scratchy to him but comforting and warm to her. He didn’t like the pattern or the colour either. That morning he finally decided he had had enough and killed it. Partially buried it in a cat litter shallow grave. Before getting a slow burning case of the Jiminy Crickets.

And so it wasn't just the murder, he decided. Everything else seemed to have conspired to ruin his day as well. Even the cat. But especially his conscience.

Maybe it was a by-product of him calling the cat YOLO that resulted in it choosing to take a particularly ripe movement in his slipper. His wife had bought semi-transparent single ply toilet paper from the local pound shop which wasn't fit for purpose and one of his children had left the flap open on his cereal, resulting in flabby, chewy, stale flakes of bran.

Now, with no sense of purile irony, God had taken a massive dump on him in the shape of a dead body on his lawn.

Who do you call in such a situation? Sure the police, but then who? Or do you just wait? He drew on his cigarette while a gust of wind indecently flapped his dressing gown open as he stood on the porch.

He really hoped this was a chance accident. The idea of him being embroiled in a big court case hurt his head. As head of procurement for a local council, he didn't have time to mess about courts and lawyers, he had to ensure their payment system for approved suppliers was rubber stamped by Government. He was meeting a minister at the end of the week, and he'd much rather get his suit dry cleaned for that than for some cross examination by a barrister.

It was then he looked down at his hand in which was what could most definitely be called a bloody knife.

'Oh dear', he thought, 'I've done it again!' as the Police pulled up.

It wasn't just the murder, he decided. Everything else seemed to have conspired to ruin his day as well. Even the cat.

Said cat was lounging with audacious indolence on the windowsill, stretched out full length ,as though in league with the sunshine. Ignoring Mark as he scrubbed at the lino, as if the blood and guts of an ex-mouse were beneath the feline sensibilities. Slipping in mouseguts had been the second time he'd slipped in blood today, and the AB negative of the unknown victim had joined the blood - did they have blood types?- of the deceased rodent on his new grey trousers.

With a grunt, he pulled his considerable weight up and glared at the cat who was now washing the blood off his paws and whiskers.

"It would be easy to prove you did this one, Lucius," he said-regretting, not for the first time, his choice of name for the animal--"now, if only that woman's murderer had blood stained fur, life would be much more bearable." His mind flashed, just for a sleep-deprived second, to a vision of a blood soaked White Rabbit, with a pocket watch in one hand and a machete in the other because he pushed it away. That way lead to madness, and he'd been down that particular rabbit hole before.

When he'd entered the room it had been lapping at the blood. Instead of running off it glanced up as if annoyed at the disturbance.

'Shoo,' he said.

The cat fixed him for a second with golden eyes, then grudgingly, it seemed, meandered across the room leaving a trail of bloody paw prints. It sat in the corner, watching, as if interested. He stared back, convinced the cat was the only witness to the murder. But how do you interview a cat?