A Gray and black cat sat suspiciously on my friends porch. They don’t have a cat. He looks at me like he knows something. “Who’s your new friend?” I ask. “Oh , he’s been following us around the last few days. We don’t know whose he is, but he has a flea collar and doesn’t look too shaggy so he’s probably being taken care of by someone.”
We run, he starts to follow and we stop paying attention to him. It’s the usual chatter: How was your weekend? What are you up to? What movies did you see? I had watched a movie that was scarier than fits my taste, although I guess it was fitting almost being Halloween and all. So we talked about movies, distortions, Halloween parties, what’s the purpose of Halloween and why people like it. That it’s a scary holiday.
As we run by a certain spot we hear a rustle in the woods. It’s dark, and neither of us mention it as we are alone in the dark. It sounds like something or someone moving in the tall grass/trees and we don’t want to scare ourselves anymore. We run the park loop again and the same spot we hear something on one side and then the other. We run a little faster…not daring to mention it.
Almost done with our five mile run, but still a decent ways away from our destination, out pops the CAT. Has he been following us the whole time? He seems like a person, with a personality. Watching us. “Maybe he’s Samatha the Witch!” I say. “Or maybe he’s the cat from Harry Potter!” “What was that professors name again? Professor McConnelly or something like that?” [It’s McGonnagal].
He follows us back to the house. The kids are really excited to see their cat friend again.and want to hear all about how it followed us. It’s time to get on the bus. We’ll never know if it followed us for five miles, if he knows something we don’t or if he is a friend or foe. But for animals lovers, I say..he was protecting us all the way!
Afternotes: 11/23: This cat continues to play at my friends house. This cat has meowed at us as we have been blocks away...as we've run in the park we have seen some cat cross our paths...but it was too dark to know if it was the same one.
