Vignette

Coming home after a long walk, rounding the corner, looking forward. Up ahead, an orange-white cat, coloured like a furry splash of vanilla/orange ice cream, bolts out of an empty driveway, hits the sidewalk and darts around the edge of the lawn box. The grey cat chasing it isn’t that far behind, but once ice-cream cat vanishes around the edge, grey cat stops running and hesitates. It can’t see ice-cream cat any more, and there appears to be a very real possibility that this means ice-cream cat no longer exists.

Ice-cream cat has stopped running and is looking back over its shoulder, looking for grey cat. It sees me instead, and sits down.

Grey cat climbs up onto the lawn box and catches sight of ice-cream cat. Its fur is thick and high on its back, but it seems to realise that ice-cream cat is now paying attention to something else. Grey cat looks around, notices me approaching, and sits down and starts to lick itself clean. Oh, hello, officer. Property damage? What property damage?

I reach down and scritch both cats behind their ears, grey cat first — it’s sitting on the lawn, up higher above the sidewalk — and then ice-cream cat, who’s curling around my legs now. “You’re not fooling anyone,” I tell them, or something like that.

I continue on, reach my house, turn down the driveway towards my door. I look back down the sidewalk before I go in. Ice-cream cat is still sitting there, looking at me. On pause.

Whatever happens after I enter the house is known only to the cats.