INDEPENDENT MINDED BEASTS

Neil came by yesterday. His cat died last week, and he's broken up about it. The animal was around thirteen years old, but still had a few good years left. I never met the cat, but I feel sad for him. They would enjoy morning coffee together out behind the house, with a pipe and the distant "company" of a neighborhood coyote that lives on the other side of the stream. Coyotes are not really pet material, and I doubt that the coyote will particularly miss the cat.
It just lived there, and was more concerned with dinner.

The only cat I know nowadays is the shadow cat that occasionally visits my apartment. It isn't real, but I sometimes catch movement in the corner of my eye in the morning.
Then it vanishes. It makes no sound. No ghostly "boo".

"Mew".

It's mostly in places where it should not be.
Sometimes defying laws of physics.
Like in the full bookshelves.


My downstairs neighbor, our landlady, has a cat. It's an old creature, and very rarely even noticeable. Sometimes she asks my apartment mate to look after it for a few weeks. I cannot remember what it looks like. It might be a descendant of the ghost cat that pads around before I'm truly awake. Many generations.

Until the first time she cat-sat, my apartment mate had never heard purring. It surprised her. Her pet hamsters when she was growing up had never done that. What did it mean?

For some reason this reminded me of the frogs her mother had brought home from the wet market when she was a child. Which after a few days escaped from the kitchen and were never found. They lived at the top of the building, and one imagines the animals hoppity-wise descending the outside staircase, four floors, heading for the park a block away where there was a pond. A bold adventure, a new beginning. Prospects better than the cooking pot that had awaited them.

Somewhere in North Beach there is a small clan of frogs.
Telling mythic tales of the great escape.
The great hops to freedom.
Ribbit.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================