Morning Outside the Window
When the train came out of the tunnel, the window suddenly brightened. The carriage was still dim, and from the coffee cup on her knees rose a thin thread of steam. Stepping down onto the wet platform, she smelled rain just ended. Morning light spread thinly over the asphalt. The signs on the unfamiliar street hadn't turned off their lights yet, and warm air flowed from a bakery opening its doors. She walked slowly on purpose. As if there were no reason to hurry, or as if the scenery would vanish if she did. Each time her shoes touched the wet pavement, there was a low sound. At the end of the alley, a cat sat with its back to the sunlight. She stopped, and the cat looked at her, too. Neither moved. It was morning. The place she'd arrived was still unfamiliar, and that unfamiliarity was slowly settling on her shoulders. The cat shook itself, rose, and vanished into the alley.
Watching the cat vanish at the end of the alley, I think of the street vendor's cat I saw on my way home last evening. That cat sat on a briefcase and looked at no one. When I turned to look again, it had already gone inside the shop. The unfamiliar calm of a street on a morning after rain overlaps with the familiar evening of our alley.
Even after the cat went into the shop, only the spot where it had sat remained on the stall, and the morning sun must have passed over that emptied place.