A cat

Last week I noticed there’s a cat outside, so I buy a bag of dry food and a can of chicken, but the cat’s gone. Couple nights later the cat’s back. I give her the chicken. She came back tonight.

I sit next to the cat on the stairwell as she eats. A few things come to mind. How does she survive out here alone? I guess from eating the odd garbage here, few rodents there. But also from people like us. I’ve known for years that cats are just opportunists. When they rub themselves against your calf or sniff your hand, or you run your hand on and along their smooth backs into that surprisingly stiff tail muscle, it’s all for show. They learned to do this because we like it and reward them with food – nothing more. Because it looks like love, they do it for us, and we give them food. Thousands of years later, this relation stands unchanged. The Egyptians even revered them as gods. But really, they’re just cats. They sit, they eat, they shit, they sleep. And this is all just a transaction.

I didn’t know this as a kid, but I do now.

The cat appears to relax. She places a paw on my foot and extrudes her claws. A minute later, she runs through my crisscrossed legs, a sign of comfort. When I lean back on the stairwell door, it creaks and she briefly freezes. For all she knows her death is right around the corner. But nothing happens. Seconds later she relaxes and goes back to eating.

The sky is black and all I hear is rain. I get up, and go back inside.