Today I saw a cat on my walk. Mind you, I did not know it was a cat, though I did think it kind of looked like a cat.

“That dog sure looks, and moves, like a cat!” I remember thinking to myself. And then, when I got closer: “OMG! It IS a cat!”

The cat was the size of a small dog and grey in colour. It stood there in its red and blue harness, the leash attached to it held casually by a young man. The eyes—of the cat, not the young man’s—were wide open, almost bulbous, and looking at something in the middle distance. Its long, bushy tail flicked this way and that while it debated whether it was worth its while to investigate things further.

I wanted to take a picture of the cat to go with this post. Yes, I was already writing it in my head when I discovered it was not a canine but a feline. I didn’t, though—take the picture, I mean. For one, I didn’t want to interrupt the momentum of my walk. For another, I was slightly hesitant to ask a stranger if I could photograph their pet.

So I walked past and moved on to that part of the San Tomas Creek Trail close to where I stay, and continued with my walk.

There was a lone Mallard swimming in the creek waters. I wondered where his friends had gone. It was a cloudy day. Perhaps the sun not being out was their reason for giving up on swimming. The geese were missing too. Had they flown to Canada, their namesake country? I wondered idly.

When you are walking, as also when listening to music, your mind tends to dwell on life’s many mysteries: why there was only a lone Mallard swimming, whether the geese had flown to Canada, why the grass or plants along the path I walked smelled like aniseed…

Why indeed? I’ll need to ask ChatGPT for an answer to that.

Meanwhile, it identified this tree that stood along my way as Quercus agrifolia, or the C C oast Live Oak.

©️ Shail Mohan 2026