Simultaneity

November, dyed in shades of gray, casts its shadow on a city street scene.
A cat, spurred by sudden perception, dashes from beneath a parked car and
hides under the drooping branches of a juniper bush. From this vantage point,
she observes the world as it subtly shifts through a myriad of shapes and
perceptible motions.

The air in front of her eyes is gray with sleet, the ground beneath her haunches
moist and cold. A man and his dog emerge from an alley and move along the
sidewalk near her hiding place. The man lights a cigarette with a dying cigarette
then tosses the dead one onto a mass of wet leaves covering a sewer grate at
the curb of a quiet intersection. The cat's eyes dart after the butt, following its
trajectory, then return to man and dog.

The man is hunched against the weather, walking slowly behind a taut leash,
the cold wind furrowing his brow. Under heavy clouds and barren trees, his
unshaven face reveals an expression of regret and resignation. The cat, focused
on every movement, is blind to the meaning of this expression.

From a different perspective, the dog pulling on the end of a leash is focused
elsewhere, relying on a sense of smell, sniffing at the scent of other animals,
traces of passage. What a dog perceives, or how a reality derived from scent
in a wordless mind might be experienced, is a mystery to this man, or would
be if he gave it any thought. Instead, distant recollections fill his mind with a
language that is meaningless to both cat and dog.

If a cat, watching this man, could read his face and speak for herself she might
say, "The weary shades of resignation in his face and manner are visible traces
of his own mortality, the daily grind, love and regret, dreams misspent, the
summer's distant passing." But the cat neither thinks in these words nor
understands the nuanced language of a human face. Unnoticed in the evergreen
foliage, she only stares, cautiously.

Her wordless thoughts, unspoken, shape a universe outside the conception of
men. Sleet turns to snow, the sky continues to darken. As the dog pulls the
man off the curb, the cat slinks forward, turning her head to follow their passage
into the intersection. In the distance, the sound of a crow cawing, the wind
rising. A car pulling out of a driveway draws the cat's attention elsewhere.