No matter what I do, my cat always hogs the show. Cleo is a born comedian.
I wondered where she was last night. She likes to stay out late and play. Used to sleeping on my bed or on the sweater I have stuffed into my reference box upon my dresser, that night she failed to come at bedtime when I called her. She had disappeared.
Like any caring parent I have prepared her for the world. Her claws are still uncut and she knows my yard and nearby field with close familiarity. Since passing kitten hood she has grown bolder. The coyotes never come this far but stay and party on the hill a mile away at night. I’ve seen no bears or mountain lions lately closer than the hills. Except for the yellow Tomcat that comes around, no other animals roam my yard. Cleo does OK in kitty land outside at night.
The Tomcat doesn’t bother her. Cleo has been fixed, you know.
Where did she go last night? It was a mystery. The night was cool and I worried would she stay warm? At nine o’clock, when I prepared for bed, I took one last look around and called to Cleo to come in.
“Cleo? Cleo? Cleo?”
No Cleo answered me.
I went out again once more and tried my usual call to bring her home to me. I knew she wasn’t coming in to bed this night. She had decided to sleep out or in the garage someplace. Then, as I started in, I turned again to look once more. At that final moment I learned the answer to the mystery. And there she was.
In World War Two there used to be a character. You would see him ever where. His image was on every wall and there was always writing just below; “Kilroy Was Here.” The Kilroy symbol was a simple drawing of a person hanging on a fence. Only fingers and his face were drawn. I think it was a way for the soldiers to leave a part of themselves behind in all the places of our world where they’d had been to fight; to tell that once upon a time they had been there.
I thought of Kilroy because Cleo looked like that.
She was in my car front seat. Only her two front paws and her furry face hung above the open window frame. Her yellow eyes stared at me as if to say, “I’m quite all right. Let me stay here for the night.”
I knew she wasn’t coming in so I didn’t bother her. My seat cushion was familiar and the car could not be safer.
I let her stay and went to bed at peace.
