Every morning, the black and white cat is there with its white and grey pet, the man. By the museum building, by the library, by the ramp. The man brings food and feeds the cat. They converse, matter-of-factly.

And people say.

The man is off his rocker. Looked after by grown-up children who don’t mind his wandering because actually it’s nice to get a break. His habits are clockwork anyway, he hasn’t the wit to break them. Jabbering to the nice kitty, sweet really, no more part of real life than the gulls’ quick-padding webby flat feet on the grass beside, left-right-left-right-left-right, no more in tune, just beating the hollow beat to the cat, who mostly ignores him, like everyone else. Juss gimme the food pal, thassss right.

Or

He’s homeless, the cat his only friend. They’ve never had anyone else, known each other a long, long time. Companionship absolute. The cat finds warm places at night, the man finds warm places at night. Daywise, the man goes out, silent-cup-pleading, his singular reason: food for the cat. The cat who’s never short of scraps but still, pretends to be hungry, yowling, whenever the white and grey man comes back, sensing the need. And a growing fondness for the conversation. It would be less . . . diverting, without.

Or

The man lives in a little suburb a bus-ride away. He was married, happily, to his lady who choosed him over everyone else. She’d always loved his stories. They ripped up the garden they bought for themselves, together, and planted things they could grow and eat and look at and smell, and even in the winter, say oh, isn’t it beautiful. They went to Argentina, once, and he liked the places with red and white checked plastic table covers, ashtrays and bread and music, and she liked the dancing in street squares, and they ate red meat and drank red wine and laughed and talked to the people selling jewellery made from bits of garbage in the streets who were from Peru, and wondered what it was like there, and bought gifts. And then, the lady got sick, and because her inside wasn’t strong enough, she faded all, all the way away. And he, clothes scissor’d up late at night in fury, a lot of lying on the kitchen floor under all the help-y words, and walks out far, for hours and hours and hours. And one day, by the museum building, the cat. The man almost stepped on it in his daze and it leapt away to hide in a bush by the side of the path and then stopped, leaf-halo’d, and the man, stopped, jolt’d, and the haze was gone and the cat was there. And he didn’t try to understand, but started coming back. So now, every morning, the gentle outpourings. He feeds the cat fish from a tin, and all of the stories.

And he dances in the street squares.

And says oh, isn’t it beautiful.

Laura Halpin is from Dublin, Ireland. She writes poetry, short stories, flash and micro, with a particular grá for the challenge and beautiful economy of shorter prose. Her work has been published in Icarus Mag, Into the Void, and Ink in Thirds, among others. Her mantra is simple. Just keep writing.