THEY LIKE BOXES

Perhaps I should not have had that last cup of tea before going to bed. When I woke up in the middle of the night the cat was on top of me, purring, then leapt to the floor and went off in pursuit of something I could not see. Now, even with the light from the lamp on the table in the hall corner, it's reasonably dark in my room, so there are shadows and indistinct shapes at the periphery of my vision, and it isn't unusual that I cannot quite make out what is there. Cats have more acute vision in the dark. It's the structure of their eyes. They have six to eight times as many cells for viewing in half light as humans do, which allows them to see much more when we would be quite lost. She saw something there.

The problem is that there is no cat here.
I do not have a cat.

A friend of mine in Israel has cats coming out of his ears, so to speak. Whenever a stray cat ends up in his neighborhood, he puts out food and water, which is very kind of him. They eventually become habituated to his presence, and often end up being an occasionally pettable or lappable courtyard or indoor-outdoor beast. Some of them move right in and make themselves at home in the unoccupied nooks of the house, like behind a cabinet.
Or under the coffee table. For instance.
He's remarkably cat-friendly.

Too much caffeine gives me strange dreams. I did not wake up, and there is no cat.

I suspect that at some point there may have been a cat here, before I moved in. This building dates from before the war, who knows who or what occupied my apartment before we started living in this place. I know that five people were living here at one point; I cannot imagine how they kept from killing each other because it would be tight for more than two. Perhaps one of them was comatose all the time.


That could explain this non-existent cat. Cats like sleeping on warm bodies that don't move. Maybe it woke up moments before I did (or didn't), and saw a mouse.
Which also is not here.


I think I'll put out a box for it tonight.



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