Cat o’ the Night
Every night, I go outside for about half an hour. I do some skipping, then I sit on the grass to cool off and watch Smudge. I think to best describe what she becomes in the eerie half-light of a late summer night I need to borrow a line or two from L.M. Montgomery’s The Story Girl: ‘ But Pat would have none of us. He struggled out of my clasp and disappeared over the long grasses with soundless leaps. He was no longer our tame, domestic, well acquainted Paddy. He was a strange, furtive animal–a questing beast.’
It makes a dark night spookier, to be abroad with a cat. Suddenly she could be a witch’s familiar, and there could be magic lurking in the air. Those aren’t moths she’s chasing, but goblins and fairies… and the sliver of a new moon is there for her especial convenience only. Cats are creatures of the dim.
(p.s… cats are also really, really hard to take photos of at night, and while you’re trying you get eaten alive by mozzies. Oh, my itchy feet!)