The Green Elephant in the Room

io9 has a regular feature they call Concept Art Writing Prompts. They post a piece of art and invite readers to submit stories based upon the illustration. I've started writing short—very, very short—stories as a warm-up to my real writing. 

This is another one based on a piece by Sandy Skoglund.

The Green Elephant in the Room 

Manners had been drilled into young Angelo so thoroughly that even now, nearly seven decades later, he couldn't bring himself to ask about the cats. "Next time," he thought. "Next time, for sure."