Below-mentioned sunset, putting me in a wonderful peak of happiness, of course sparked off a series of events that, though quite small, still strike me as beautifully wild:

At the tail end, where silver unwinds its steel-strands and weaves a soft shadow, I grew very hungry. You may wonder at this, or even find it a little humorous, but I found it quite appropriate » awakening of the senses, as the say. So I went in to make a little dinner, and as I sat to eat, the most strange keening and howling commenced beneath my kitchen window. I just had to run out and investigate, all things considered…

I found a face-off, of the ancient and honorable kind, between 2 neighborhood cats, one black as sin and the other a uniform, lush grey. They were both crouched, pounce-style, heads low to the ground, tails flicking in dangerous, measured strokes. The tension reminded me in all ways of the palpable concentration that clouds a room of chess players at a tournament, where you walk into a near-stifling fog that affects you profoundly because of its horrid contradictions: an iron-discipline of silence over the seething passions of competition, or, in equal terms, the rigidity of tactical computation overlaying an aggression that is not quite as symbolic as the chess-players might have you believe. This stand-off was the same, a viciously mental measurement, where every motion is assessed and one false or weak tremor and the world explodes in a fury of teeth, claws, and bloodcurdling screeches.

To make it even more disturbing, the grey cat was making this most alien, terrifying, high-pitched sound, like a monotone air-raid siren or your average nuclear-reactor overload sound; it made whatever hair my simian forebears have left on me stand on end. The poor black cat was suffering the same…

My presence, though, seemed to destroy the equilibrium, or at least break up the event due to some social blunder on my part– I did get the impression this event was not meant for human eyes, but they had gone a bit too far to just break away like nothing had happened. The black cat, creeping away first, began to pay attention to me– of course it was a cover– and followed me back into my apartment. I let the creature have the run of the place, and watched it investigate every corner and every fixture, eat some bread from my hand, and then politely ask to be let out again.

Now I know you all know that cats are alien species– and I am encouraged in this belief by the fact that so many throughout history have remarked on this fact. I do not claim to know what purpose they are here for– perhaps, were I to guess, it would be spying, or maybe they’re more like the mice in Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy and they actually run the place. But I have now been priviledged to witness a small slice of what is probably a vast and complex world of protocols and customs; and it was surprising how similar our own moments of conflict are to the cats– I guess we must have learned it from them.