I Am Very Much Like The Cat That Lives In The House Across The Road.

I am very much like the cat that lives in the house across the road. On certain mornings when I go down the street to the bakery to get a chocolate cannoli (4.50) and then up the street to the cafe to get a small latte (4.00, saving me 1.50 over having bought both a coffee and cannoli at either store), She also goes down the street to where a gravel laneway once joined the road, but no longer does - instead the lane sits elevated on a sandstone wall over the bend of the main road, amputated at either end. Here she observes men and women wandering up the footpath on the road, and notes their individual dispositions, tallying their number up and filing it away into her mysterious interior record. It is a cold morning, but the still mist in the air signals a sweaty humidity that will reach its peak in the noon sun, punishing those below her dressed for their chilly morning commutes.

Satisfied with her survey, she scampers back up the street - darting under a car when a passerby attempts to approach her. He is crouched and clicking his fingers to beckon her over. She does not approach, but the attention interests her, as a new phenomena to observe and catalogue. We face each other down, her green eyes studying me silently as I contort myself to see through the narrow gap between the curb and the underside of the car. I give up and return to the chair on my front porch to eat my breakfast, and she returns to the tile step by her front gate and sits erect, tail wrapped around her feet. We will sit and pretend to listen to the children playing in the public school next door, as we continue to study each other from across the road. I will finish my latte and cannoli and rise to go inside, and she will duck slightly with alarmed curiosity. I will close the front door behind me and she will jump back up to the windowsill, slightly ajar, and pass through a gap in the curtain back into her home.