There was a cat on the boundary wall when I went for my walk last night. Well, actually there are way too many cats around here, so I don’t know whether there were others lurking beneath cars or wandering around looking for mice and pigeons. But the one I noticed was this particular one on the wall watching me intently from behind the bushes.
I was nonchalance personified as I fished out my phone to take a picture. Not wanting to alarm Miss Meow and have her scampering for safety, I was slow in the my movements, extremely so.
The cat though was even more nonchalant than me. It was as if it knew that I was not about to crawl through the bushes and get at her. My days of crawling through narrow spaces and getting at strange cats and trying to pet them are behind me. Now I only click them, until and unless they make the first move and make it clear that they want to be petted.
This one apparently wasn’t too enamoured of the human, me. She expressed no desire for attention, but stayed put as if it knew that the human would take her picture and move on. That’s exactly what happened. Human went her way to finish her walk, and the cat continued to sit on the wall, to stare into space and contemplate deeply on the mysteries of life.
© Shail Mohan 2023
Shail's Nest 
I’ve often thought that if we could read the minds of cats we’d all be absolutely horrified and possibly terrified too! But then, I’m a dog lover so…I might be biased…
Cats are very interesting in their own way and have an intellectual mind. I’m normally a dog lover but for some reason I am starting to become very fond of cats (probably because my brother adopted his wife’s two cats as his own ‘kids’ when they got married). Started volunteering at a rescue agency for cats near my home and have been nudging my husband to be open to getting a cat (which is a much more manageable pet or us, as we don’t have the time for a dog right now). I wish we got to see more cat lovers around us =, but most people we know have dogs.