This piece also appears in The Fragments as Moris.
I forgot I had a cat.
It was his first night in the apartment. He was six months old, a tiny, terrified shadow that had spent most of the day hiding in some invisible corner of the house. He came out briefly to eat, keeping low to the ground, then disappeared again. I had spent the day getting the apartment ready for him, buying bowls and carrying litter, the things you do to welcome another life into your own. But by the time I turned off the lights and got into bed, I was exhausted. My brain discarded the new data. I fell asleep as a man living alone.
Around 3:00 a.m., I woke with the feeling that someone was watching me.
The room was pitch black. I opened my eyes and saw two massive, glowing green eyes right in front of my face. For a moment, they were all I could see.
His name is Moris. He is entirely black. In a dark room, he becomes the dark. He had climbed onto the bed without making a sound and was inspecting my sleeping face.
For three seconds, I was terrified. My heart started pounding, and I pulled back before I understood what I was looking at.
On the fourth, I took a breath. The void blinked, made a small sound, and sat down on my blanket.
I lay back down, my pulse slowly returning to normal. He found a spot near my feet, curled into a tight shape, and went to sleep.
I stayed awake a little longer. The refrigerator hummed, and a whistle rose from the street below. I lay there sorting the day behind me, rehearsing the one ahead. Moris just existed. He breathed slowly and evenly, with the ease of a creature with no unfinished business.
I listened to that rhythm for a while.
Then I closed my eyes and let the dark simply be the dark.