Sophocles with Fur
I do most of my writing at the breakfast table off the kitchen. This is a practical arrangement arrived at through years of determining how little I ought to move while working. The bay windows provide good light. The door to the pool area is close enough to accommodate the Boyz and their changing opinions about which side of it they belong on. There are plenty of outlets, BBC News runs on the kitchen television, and the refrigerator holds Diet Sundrop.
From my chair I can also see through the dining room to the picture window overlooking the front yard and walk. Between that view and the provisions within reach, I consider the position a modest achievement in domestic planning.
This morning I settled in to work on a gentle client piece and noticed Winston sitting on the dining room windowsill. He was upright, composed, looking out into the steady rain. An hour later I looked up and found him in precisely the same position.
There is something about an orange cat sitting quietly at a window that encourages a person to give him more credit than the available evidence warrants. I have never required much evidence. I routinely furnish the animals in this house with motives, opinions and fully developed interior lives, then proceed as though they have confided these things to me.
Winston looked marvelous. Majestic, even. Beyond the glass were clouds and rain and the occasional neighbor walking a dog, all of life proceeding past his window while he remained still enough to understand it.
I went back to my work.
Every so often I looked up. There he sat. While I changed a sentence, reconsidered it and eventually returned it to something very close to its original form, Winston maintained his concentration. I began to feel that one of us was making better use of the morning.
By the fourth hour, I had assigned some weight to whatever was occupying him. A passing interest ought to have passed by then. Perhaps the rain had put him in a reflective mood. Perhaps he was considering the household, his place in it, the burden of sharing it with two golden retrievers who have never had a thought they felt obliged to keep quiet.
Whatever the question, he had been left alone with it long enough.
I got up and walked through the dining room with the vague but sincere intention of offering companionship. He didn’t have to work through everything himself. I would stand beside him, look out at the rain, perhaps rest a hand on his back. Let him know all would be okay.
My Sophocles with fur.
As I reached the window, I followed his gaze. Just beyond the pane, attached to the casing by the remains of a spiderweb, hung an empty cicada shell. The spider had apparently moved on. The cicada had done the same. The breeze swung the shell a quarter turn one way and a quarter turn back.
Winston looked at me. He looked at the shell. Then he nodded, and I could have sworn he said, “would you look at this shit.”
I stood beside him a minute longer, the two of us facing the glass, and then I walked back to the table and picked up the client piece where I’d left it.
