Feral Felis domesticus

Lost. In the dark. On a street with apartment buildings yellow-ed by two aged streetlights. Edges of edifices that are barely more than scratches on a black emptiness.







Holding still, but searching and looking and casting about. Not fearful, but so very in the wrong place. Thrown out of habitat, out of familiarity, plucked from a warm safety and left fluttering like a moth in hopeless circles that can't hold their shape.

















Alone with creeping chill. No danger save the gnawing hunger pains. And hardly a question, but an echoing statement. Where do I go?












There is no direction. The light dissipates after the next streetlight, leaving grey forms with no meaning. The next few meters are certain, but after that perception drops off. And what would those few meters gain you, but more certainty of just how there is no place to go?












Strike out, and all there is to find is the absence of the light you are crouching beneath right now. Still, your eyes are sharp, and you peer with a slowly fading intent. Time passes. Nothing changes. A breeze. The flicker of an insect. Most of all the lack of change has becomes apparent and a solidified presence. Your limbs are stiff now, your choice is the same.



























Your eyes are dull with nothing to see. Your mind is numbed with nothing to think.



























What is the light, but a false comfort. In reality the darkness is no more undesirable than the cutting beams that never vary.

















So you stay in the light. If only because it is a fraction more familiar. And the world goes on. Day never arrives. Nobody else comes across you. Nothing stirs. The only passing of time is the slow, undetectable flow of air. It comes from nowhere, and it leaves for nowhere. I would say that decades pass, but time has no meaning in this place.























































Finally, the light went out.





















































































It made no difference.