Short Story: Kitty
This story is a work of fiction and is Copyright 2009 Brandon Franklin. You may not copy or reprint it without my permission. However, I encourage you to share it and link to it if you like it.
I love sitting outside on evenings like this. It's so relaxing, with the air almost the same temperature as my skin, and the varied sounds of the city faintly, but clearly, audible in the distance. I often sit here thinking about how, at times like this, one is surrounded by people, and yet can feel utterly alone. Oh wait, perhaps I've spoken too soon!
I seem to have captured the attention of a local feline during my early evening vigil.
He approaches with the confidence that only either a hungry animal or an extremely tame one typically displays. It's difficult to tell which would better describe him. He doesn't have the telltale injuries and filthy fur one would expect to see on a stray, but he seems too lean and quick-footed for a housecat. At any rate, I extend my hand in friendship to the little animal, and he readily accepts, or perhaps even insists upon, some strokes beginning at his head and moving down along his back.
I wonder what he might be thinking about me? Do cats look at us humans with apprehension, especially in light of our larger size, and hope to appease us so we don't attempt to maul them? Or do they consider us soft and weak, bordering on prey, with our useless claws and blunt teeth? My new companion's gaze meets my own, and I imagine at that moment what he must see.
He must see a large, passive creature, willing to be approached suddenly in the dark by a strange animal who hunts to survive. Isn't that bizarre? He must find it so. Or perhaps he pities me. Perhaps he considers himself the superior between us, with more intellectual capacity than would be immediately apparent to an outside observer. He may wonder if this human sitting before him appreciates him as a threat of any kind, and understands the implications of meeting the gaze of your predator directly as he has done with such nonchalant bravado.
He may wonder, as he moves away from the motionless sitting human, how long it will be until someone finds it, sitting there like a statue, heart beating but mind completely gone. He probably wonders how long the human's own consciousness will endure within his own before being fully consumed. He is already thinking about his next hunting ground this evening, a few streets to the west, and the old man that he's seen sitting around there lately. Old men are the easiest. They always meet your gaze right away.
