Blur

It was night, heading down Main Street just after dusk, when headlights started to click on motorist's vehicles.  My smallish car was traveling next to a heaving, snorting Metro bus that was bouncing forward after the light turned green.  There was still light enough to see pavement ahead, and as one corner of my eye watched the metal beast in the left lane, a small black ghost darted not thirty feet in front of us as fast as anything I have ever seen.

When a cat runs, usually there is a lope as the back end rises to gather legs under for the next plunge of propulsion.  If there is desperation, the whole body stretches into a horizontal line low to the ground and time stands still with the best of hopes, as the animal breaks laws of physics like eggshells.  This was a young cat, her head level as the rest of her body spun straw into gold, and she made it ahead of us into the parking lot of the U-Haul Rental.  She was almost invisible, she went so fast.

No sign of her as I went by the scrubby area, this phantasm of black lightning.  Most likely a feral in a poor area, a cat that thinks to cross Main Street at rush hour has to have some sort of street smarts, especially being so young.  I don't think the bus saw her, there was no braking evident; she is purely lucky to have made it.  Little one, please keep your head on straight and no more daredevil escapes across city streets.  I wish I had a blanket for you, a bowl of food, a place to rest.

It is only afternoon, a starling sits on my windowsill squawking about the snow blowing in off the lake.  My own family is burrowed into midday naps, all rescues from shelters, the vet, or my Min from a back porch further north.  Count your whiskers, cousins all; snow and wind, door and roof.