The sunlight had appeared after three days of absence.

Previously, rain had kept people mesmerised with falling temperature, after what could be called a period of unbearably humid weather.

At around 2 pm, I was sitting at a table and enjoying a delicious lunch at a family function. A tent had been placed to not only provide people with a place to gather and enjoy, but also to add to the ambience of the event. The building around was decorated with orange rice lights which would later come to life in the darkness of night.

I finished my food, looked around and smiled at a few people to notify them of my departure from the table. Then I washed my hands and stepped out of the tent’s cover to admire the sun lit sky. It was bright, it was beautiful.

My ears noticed a sound, a familiar sound, a sound I used to hear very commonly once, but it had oddly been some time since I had last heard it.

I looked down and my eyes met the mysterious eyes of a cat. The familiar sound was that of a cat.

Back in the city where I lived, most animals had disappeared with the approaching wave of human development. To me, all these buildings approaching the sky are just interrupting the view of life’s reality, alluring people with something not very promising. But then again I find some people who have completely forgotten what life used to look like once.

I kept staring at the cat for a while. It was a white cat with a splash of light brown at the back. How many years had it been since I had seen one? I honestly did not know. But, it certainly felt very warm within to see one.

The cat was meowing. It wanted food. It had clearly been fed here before. It wanted its sound to travel to the ears of a particular person.

I looked around and found no one reacting to the sound of the cat. The cat was patient though, it was sure this person would come and I guess I trusted its belief, so I left, but not before clicking a picture with my smartphone.

I went to my hotel room and sat down. My eyes had started to become heavy with sleep but I did not intend to drown into it yet.

I opened my phone’s gallery and went through the photos that I had previously clicked at the event. I stopped at the photo of the cat.

I had a strange feeling, I had seen it before, not the cat, but this exact setting of a cat and its background.

Was it the same cat or the same place, I couldn’t recall, it could be my sleepy mind playing tricks with me while processing the thought of having seen a cat after so long.

The touch of familiarity and the memory of regular appearances of the animal, flooded the sleepy mind and I left the world to wake up into a dream. The dream looked and smelt of not a very distant past, a time which may never return and with me was a white cat with a splash of light brown at the back and I spoke, “I knew I had seen you before.”

Written by Anuran Chatterji

Hey, Connect with Us:)

• WordPress
• Pinterest
• Medium
• LinkedIn