He lies asleep in a patch of sunlight. I notice him twitching and wonder whether he is dreaming and if so what he is dreaming of. I hope that he still dreams of his youth and the adventures that he had then. For when he was young he left his home and travelled far afield. No-one knew where he had gone though people claimed to have seen him but there was nothing unique enough about the way that he looked for me to be certain that it was him that they had seen.
At first I called for him and worried that he had been run down, or killed by a fox or even taken by the Beast but after a time I gave up and hoped that he had simply found the wild more to his taste than domesticity.
His sister at first pined and then became used to being the only one for attention to be lavished on. He had always stolen her food anyway and now she could dine at her leisure without having to let him show his dominance by devouring the first mouthfuls.The wild had no charm to her then and never has, unlike him.
It had been a hot Summer, but it broke in a violent thunderstorm. The whole house shook and then the rain cascaded down onto the house and it was as if we were underneath a waterfall. My ex - wife woke me with a start. She told me that there was someone downstairs and I descended the stairs with jelly legs and a beating heart. As I came into the kitchen there was a flash of lightning and the whole room was briefly filled with an intense blue light. And in the corner sat a soaking ginger cat. He looked at me and I looked at him. "Is it you?" I said and his eyes looked briefly puzzled as if he was asking himself the same question.
And the answer to both questions was "Yes!" and I picked him up and danced for joy.
At first, his sister seemed rather put out at having to share her food again but with time they found an accomodation which meant of course that he gets first helpings and she gets the rest.

He is old now and sleeps such a lot but I hope that when he dreams he dreams of the freedom he had, the taste of wild rabbit and the fields and streams below the open Moorland and when it is his time to go I will take him back there and bury him there underneath the warm turf of the place that I love the most on earth and the place that was for him the setting of his own personal feline Odyssey. For me, as you know, there is no after life for humans let alone cats but there seems something somehow fitting that he should finally come to rest there, as I hope, will I.
Binker!