It was a sharp might made acrid from little saucers of untouched meat and milk left on stoops. Hopeful. Desperate. Maybe they’d come back.
–Victor Swaim, Cape & Corset Cleaner
At the beginning of Death Wishing, cancer has been wished away, but so have cats. Last Wednesday I took a five hour cross-country flight to read from my novel at the legendary San Francisco bookstore, City Lights –dream come true that was also incredibly stressful; two hours before the reading, the house sitter called to tell us that when he arrived the back door was open and both of my young cats were AWOL, and that my friends were descending upon my house with floodlights (it was already night back home) and ladders (Charli cat was briefly spotted on the rooftop). The initial recovery efforts failed predictably, so we left the back door open and the cat carriers+food on the porch. My husband flew home the next day only to find both cats in the back bedroom.
Cats come back. Perhaps not to you, but to the place. Sometimes it is hard to believe and remember that.
Apparently, in Miranda July’s film called The Future, the cat narrator asks, “Have you ever been outside?”
Wish Tank 