Cats

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Sometimes, when I walk home the long way, I meet a little black cat on East Manning Street, about a block and a half away from my house.

 

 

She invariably comes running to meet me. We have a little routine: I point at her, and she immediately rolls on the ground very submissively.

 

 

I don’t know if the little black cat does this trick for everyone, but she certainly does it for me. I choose to believe that Little Black Cat is the first recruit for my Unholy Army of the Night, and she will do whatever I say. (Well, she rolls over for me, doesn’t she?)

 

 

(Of course, this usually happens in warm weather, and the warm pavement probably feels good to roll on, when you’re a little black cat.)

 

 

I used to have cats in Tunisia. My housemate Catriona and I inherited a strange little cat named Nimmer (Arabic for “tiger”), who went feral every winter and came home every spring. Then there were all of the street / alley cats who used to come in to share Nimmer’s food. (I gave Nimmer sardines. I love sardines, and so did he. And so did all of the other cats.)

 

 

Nimmer used to wait until I lay down to read a book, then crawl on top of me and breathe sardine breath into my face. Also he had all of his claws, and he used them when he climbed on top of me.

 

 

But cats are cats. In North Africa, they’re allowed to run wild, to keep the rat/mouse population at bay. It’s not considered a good idea to feed them, as they’ll get lazy and stop killing rats and mice.

 

 

Here in the USA, they’re friendly and decorative.

 

 

(But, like the little black cat down the street, they can still be part of my Unholy Army of the Night.)

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