By Ryan Kwek

Unlike the sweltering afternoon's hard, opaque, angular shadows, the soft shadows of gloaming have blurred edges, inviting those peripheral colours of the ground – of clay and curb – to cross into their pillowy penumbra. Twilight is of such a harmony that I, walking home at such a time, looking far ahead and not down at the grey-black shadows to which I have grown accustomed, almost kicked a creature. Somehow, I managed to stop right before coming into contact with it; instinct must have stopped me dead in my tracks. The creature had effaced itself, had blended into the expansive shadow spread out on the ground; it was nearly as black as a wayward shadow of bright afternoons. Presently, I scrutinised it freely – free from the mutual judgement of face-to-face staring, free from self-consciousness – due to the fact that it was facing away from me. Its catty-ears (how else other than by committing tautology can one describe those idiosyncratic, pliant triangular shapes) did not move but I would very soon learn that they were aware of my presence, for at once two green marbles flashed open from the back of its head! – such was the totality of its blackness which obscured even its facing. Then, a shift in my consciousness imperceptibly rearranged the components of reality and immediately the back-of-its-head became the face-of-the-cat. The ears, I presently perceived, had been – were – faced towards me, and the two black staring beads surrounded by green gradation grew into plump and dark orbs, pushing out the thickness of the green rings into thin, precious, fragile brims. The longer I stared at those pupils, the more I felt an urgency to look away as they seemed to grow bigger and bigger, evermore, threatening to overflow and swallow my wholeness in one look. However, I could not look away; I was fascinated. Those eyes were liquid spheres through whose curved clearness the impenetrability of the blackness it held was magnified. How long did I stand and it sit, staring at each other?

A shrill ring of a bell made its ears twitch and turn in such a soft and swift way, and within a moment its head spun around, following its ears' lead. The outline of the cat's neck became obvious as it extended to hold its head aloft. That broke the impasse. My eyes were free and saw that a bicycle was oncoming. The man riding the bicycle rang the bell a few more times in quick succession, and each time each of the cat's ears, like an independent sonic net, moved as if to catch every evanescent ring; but other than the ears, the rest of the cat was motionless, an immutable silhouette. I have left out a crucial detail concerning the path on which the cat was sitting and I was standing, but you will understand that I walk back home using this path every day, and that details dull with repetition; the absence of this detail would distort the impression of the bicycle rider's morals, and so I will say it quickly and definitively. The detail: It was a very narrow path, flanked by drains (one side with railings and one without). It could only fit one standard yawning cat's fully stretched out length, its body the shape of a lying question mark. The rider – still approaching, ever approaching –rang the bell again, and thinking that it was meant for me, I did that awkward tiptoe and flattened my body against an invisible wall, hands feeling for the rusty railing. But the rider was now ringing the bell furiously: it was for the cat. The black cat, entirely unaware of, or unbothered by, the looming danger, merely looked in the direction of the towering, spinning wheels coming for him with nonchalant curiosity. When I became certain that the cat was not going to move, it was already too late: the rider was now right in front of the cat. With the precision of an equilibrist and the confidence of an amateur, he wobbled the bike and turned the handle here and there; just grazing past the many ends of the cat's many furs (tickled, the cat recoiled and made some space for the bike), the front wheel balancing on the edge of life-and-death, of pavement-and-drain, it miraculously made its short but treacherous journey safely. The back wheel, now that passage was given by the cat, passed by smoothly. The rider looked back at the cat while cycling forward, almost fell, and promptly regained his balance and rode off into the lingering sunset-orange sky. The black cat was already back to its original, slouching position. It had lost interest or gotten used to me and, closing its eyes, it resumed its silhouetted anonymity; like those shadowed ballerinas, which one could will to spin clockwise or counter-clockwise, the cat both faced and looked away from me. I squatted, futilely trying to get its attention again, before standing and taking a long arching step –wobbling and almost falling – across the creature, resuming my walk back home.

Today, I would see the black cat under a different light: it was the weekend. Not having to go to work, I got up from bed, did not bathe and only brushed my teeth, and went out for a morning walk as was my wont. I did not go to the park, which was my usual morning destination; I went towards the narrow pavement instead, trying my luck. To my surprise, when I turned the final corner, there it was! a sitting sphinx, front legs straight out with prominent yellow-white nails. Instead of giving out riddles, it made passers-by do a side-walk, like that of a crab's; or else, to take a big step across it, a move at which I was now deft (I had had a lot of practice, every evening after work). I deposited myself at the long edge of the pavement, back against the railings,  and squatted beside him to get a closer look. The cat wore a different fur coat, one that took advantage of the morning light to shimmer and catch one's attention. One could see slivers of silvery threads accentuating his sumptuous coat of dusky grey. His eyes, while in the evening were largely welcoming, in the morning were like those of a snake, incisive, piercing. In a word, he gave off an air of being almost a whole other cat: he had lost his obscurity; the musculature of his body was pronounced, as was his leanness, his petiteness under all that fur. But his signature gave him away: his twirled tail.

Presently, the clouds further mellowed the soft sun, and the black cat turned his paws inward, tucking them under his chest. I am ashamed to admit that it was only recently that I started to pay attention to these delightful creatures. I used to think that that tidy habit of keeping one's paws belonged solely to Jinja – a name, which tenderness had modified by dropping the extraneous sounds and keeping only the essential Jin from Gin and ja from ger – the first cat that I had paid attention to. I stayed at the ground floor, and Jinja must have come in one day looking for food (I cannot remember that precious first day). Before I knew it, I was gurgling "Jinja," like a baby, to my nightly companion. Sneaking (my parents did not approve of him) through the space between the big metal latch of the main gate and the wall, he tiptoed, in his Gingerly way, into the house. His eyes would be focused on the stairs leading to the second floor (my mother would often rush down from there and shoo him away). In time, he learned to run in, scurry under the sofa with his head low and eyes looking up, hind legs ready to burst into speed, and slowly make more and more of my house his home. Eventually, I even found him in my cushioned seat, taking a non-negotiable nap. I tried to wake him up (I wanted the seat) by spinning the chair a little, and two thin but heavy crescents opened up into ochre semi-circles, half a melon-seed of black in each. His eyes opened no further, and he closed them again. That was the golden moment when I saw him bend his paws and put them under his body, comfortably between chest and cushion. I thought it was his most adorable, unique, little quirk. It was only later on, as I began to pay more and more attention to those whiskered errants sleeping along streets and under void decks, that I understood the funny look my friend had given me when I had told him that my cat had the funniest habit.

Let me indulge in reminiscence and tell just one more thing about lovable Jinja. On an unusually cold day, the atmosphere dim and dank, I first noticed that Jinja had another peculiarity. While occupied with something on the computer, I heard the tiniest sneeze. At first I thought I was imagining things, but when it happened again and I saw a hint of orange under the sofa, I knew it was Jinja's doing. Looking under the sofa, I witnessed his next sneeze: for a brief second his whole body would stiffen up and, in a simultaneous closing of eyes and jerking of head, the sneeze would escape in a sssck-fff; and the whole choreography was finished, and natural animation would return to Jinja. He would lick himself, and I would watch those fluctuating flashes of pink, at times dragging along his brown-stripped, orange tabby.

But enough about Ginger; my legs had started to ache from squatting for so long. Looking at that exemplary loaf of a cat stirred a strange feeling in me. Something which I once held as an oddity, and as emblematic of Ginger, had slowly ensconced itself between the folds of memory and mind. It was a deterioration of sorts, of some small truth, a slow and seeping jadedness, an insidious intimate intrusion. I shifted uncomfortably, staring at the pose of the black cat, a pose which now seemed perfectly ordinary, perfectly usual. My selfish naivety had run its course; the process was wholly complete; that precious pose no longer belonged solely to Ginger.

Presently, the black cat swished his – his? When did it become his? In that revelatory moment I recognised myself to have endearing emotions towards that black cat, towards him. I allowed both ends of my mouth to curl upwards, like commas of speech, between which escaped a 'Kitty.' As if Kitty finally felt my presence, he turned his head and looked at me. Those thin pupils were no longer cunning in nature; they were just a curious squint. I did not have much time to admire those emerald eyes, for Kitty was a sleepy kind of cat: he closed his eyes slowly, then, opened them slowly, and finally, slowly succumbed to somnolence. Fully shut, his eyes were replaced by two discoloured patches of fur, which seemed to serve as thick, low and brown brows; in the morning, Kitty's sleeping face was quite unlike the uniformly black dreaming face of Kitty-of-the-evening. As mentioned earlier, Kitty has a signature knot at the end of his tail. Thinking we were getting close, I broached the topic. I tried asking how he got that permanent curl. He remained sleeping; he would not tell me. It was worth a shot. I took one, final, pained look at that knot, and tried not to imagine how he had gotten it in the first place. I left Kitty to carry on with his dreamy job of guarding the pavement, and I was sauntering back home when, remembering that my fridge still preserved a half-empty packet of "Premium Cat Food" (the cashier had guaranteed that it was indeed, the choicest of brands, perfect for ginger cats), I sped up, started briskly walking, almost skipping. Kitty is not ginger, but he would not mind! Cat food is cat food, after all!

Home at once, in swift concerted motions, I took off my slippers opened and scanned the fridge extracted the packet put on my slippers again, and in a mere moment I was out again, heading back to Kitty. While happily skipping, a bicycle sped past me. An unusually cold draft followed in the bicycle's wake. Clouds dimmed the sky and the air seemed wet, heralding rain. When I reached the narrow pavement, I saw the rider at the far end of it; he rode off into the cloudy sky. I sneezed, and as a result, looked downwards. At my feet was Kitty. He was lying upside down, and I could only see his frowning mouth, small white fangs peeking out. I dared not turn him over to look at his face. The gathering clouds drew a weightless crape of shadow over Kitty, obfuscating his condition.

It was dreadful fear, dear reader.

Black Kitty, lying there in a sleep so deep against white concrete, seemed a monochrome manifestation of what I had pictured when my aunt had broached the topic: Ginger had not been visiting me for about a week or so's worth of nights; my aunt caught me off guard one day, just as I was about to be convinced by myself that Ginger had found another friend and that he was under another roof, and told me that a few days ago, she had found Ginger lying in the middle of the road, lifeless; there was no external injury, she said; luckily, she had woken up early, and no cars were running on the road yet. I walked into my room and closed the door. The emptiness of the lonely week that I had had to bear lingered on, quieter but heavier, for some few more days. I never did see Jinja for that precious last time; I could only imagine his final moments (how did he die? Out of breath he fell to the ground?), and his ultimate, last moment (where were his paws? Were his eyes and mouth closed and peaceful? Was his tail near his body, the way he liked it?). And presently, Kitty, lying here, collapsed all of my imaginations into one fixed and immutable form: this was how Jinja was like, in his final moments, mouth half-open, tail twisted, paws untidy.

I called out to Kitty. Kitty, Kitty. He was still. I breathed in deeply. I took a long, arching step over Kitty. I looked at his face. No external injury. The roiling waters of repressed memories refused to let me let down my guard. I squatted with the intention of calling out to and poking Kitty when the packet I was clenching harder and harder crinkled. Those cat-ears spun around to face the packet, and in the low-light of the overcast day, Kitty's nose pulsed slowly, then quivered in excitement. His eyes shot open, full and round pupils each surrounded by a thin, green iris.

A vitreous rrmriaow!, clear and chiming, pinkly rang.

Ever since that day, I would walk home always with a pack of "Kitty Goodies" – that same girl cashier had told me that she found it weird that a truly premium brand would use the word "premium" in their name, better to get the unassumingly confident brand – on a hunt for Kitty. Sometimes he would be found on that same narrow path, but, as I had since figured out, most of the time he would be half-dangling – tail twirled, twitching, body dreamily draping – off the cool, marble bus stop bench. Kitty would be in his typical, deep, peaceful sleep. The groaning gravel-crunching of the buses as they arrived and their screeching squeak as they stopped did nothing to disturb Kitty's slumber. His ears did not even react; the soft expansion and exhalation of his belly and the occasional bobbing of his tail were his only movements. Only the pungent, fishy smell of cat food or sometimes the rustling of the bag as I snapped open the Ziploc would cause him to rouse.

Presently, I came home, as usual, with a small bag of cat food, as usual. I first went to the path, but took a detour to the bus stop when I did not find Kitty there. However, he was missing from the bus stop too. There was an uneaten can of cat food on the marble bench starting to gather hovering flies. I started to feel afraid again, and I realised that although Jinja and Kitty both held discreet places in my heart, there was some amorphous feeling or relation, some intangible impalpability, arising from each cat, which in my mind seemed to superpose. I suppressed that strange emotion and looked around. My ears caught it before I had a chance to make a full turn: the bouncing beat of his meow as he skippily walked on catty-feet towards me: Mreo-mreo-mreo-mreo – and when he finally stopped in front of me, a declarative, drawn out Mreowwww! To my surprise, when my hands were already poised to rip open the packet with professional efficiency, Kitty took a few steps forward with his head low, and headbutted me. Boop boop. In one continuous motion, without removing his head from my legs, he brushed his whiskered cheeks in an oblique sweep against them; then, by moving forward, also brushed his long body and finally his tail against my legs, the knotted end of the latter bumping off with the finality of a full-stop at the end of a long, pleasantly tedious sentence.

I poured out a pile of crunchy salmon pellets on the ground, which Kitty eagerly picked up, bit by bit, with the pink touch of his tongue. He ate with a tilted head the pellets as they were shifted to the sides of his mouth, each crunch tilting his head more and more. While squatting, I too tilted my head, trying to get a good look at the gastronomic action, when out of the blue Kitty's head recoiled in a sssck-fff! I recoiled, too, and in that momentary shock Jinja came to mind. Kitty carried on eating as though nothing had happened. I watched him finish everything and sniff the barren ground, tongue licking at tasty nooks in which crumbs had settled. I made a mental note to bring more food – wet food might be a good change – next time. Next time? I had stood up, had been ready to leave, when a phantom sssck-fff cleared the mist of muddied memory away. Kitty, meanwhile, had resumed the perpetual lick-bath of cats.

Tomorrow, I noted in my phone, I would come with more food, some of the wet variety, and a cage to bring Kitty to the vet.

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