Nothing Uncommon, I Suppose

In an ordinary turn of Midwest events, the sun has dipped behind some clouds whose intentions have yet to be stated. I just put down my book to step outside for a cigarette. Outside the nurses are filing in random intervals past our house in their scrubs, making the trek from hospital to hospital parking lot which is at the end of our street. If eye contact gets made (which is unlikely), it takes only a second to break things off in what I can only assume to be a mutual manner.

I sit down on the railing on the right side of the porch, stage left if that’s where you are watching. There’s a tall gray-bearded black man in sweat pants and a t-shirt ambling down the road in the opposite direction of the nurses. I check my phone to see if the girl I’m supposed to be going out with tonight has called. Nope. The gray-bearded man says indistinct in my direction, I just look blankly at him and up at the clouds. Nothing uncommon, I suppose. Is it going to rain or not?

A completely black cat I’ve never seen before, I don’t think, comes up the stairs and starts walking to the opposite side of the porch (stage right) immediately. Has it seen me? I don’t think it’s seen me. It crawls through the gap in the railing and sits down on the outside rim of the porch. It lets its tail go slowly up and back down onto the concrete in the quiet and controlled way that cats do. She turns around (I assume now, for whatever reason, that she is female) and catches my eyes. Her eyes are a yellow I didn’t know existed. The gray-bearded man has turned around in the middle of the sidewalk to look back at something I cannot determine. I begin to think he might have something to do with this cat, but he turns back around and quickly dodges a couple nurses who were walking side by side. They don’t bother to respond to the near disaster.

Her eyes are still locked on me. I make a clicking noise and motion with a little hand, low to the ground, for her to come closer. Knowing my history with cats, I hardly expect it to do much but stare at me until I go back inside; this cat walks towards me immediately. The wind starts whistling through a few nurses’ hair and blows my almost empty pack of cigarettes on the ground. She lets me pet her for a little bit and then walks between my legs, rubbing against them and the railing. The gray-bearded man has turned around once again to say something (by this time he’s almost to the end of the block), to which one of the nurses turns around and turns back again quickly, but I swear he’s looking for the cat. But she’s quietly pacing around at my feet. I toss my cigarette into the ash tray, sadly, say goodbye and walk back inside. Looking out the blinds, instinctually, I see it still staring back at me through the glass as the first few drops of rain begin to fall. I turn around to go to the bathroom and wash my hands, I’m allergic to cats.