I haven’t seen my neighbor for three days in a row. She is usually out and about whenever it’s nice out, stopping briefly outside my house, where I can see her lingering on the carefully manicured grass through the window. Rather than displaying any polite gesture of greeting, she levels me with a death stare until I look away. You can tell from those raw, unfeeling eyes that she’s been into the real world, this one, she’s seen stuff out there. 

I wonder where she is now. Maybe she’s decided that this is it; she’s had enough of the suburban, passive-aggressive, phony civilities. She’ll be on her own, having a go in the wild, where brutal but honest creatures roam. 

As I sit by the window, watching a cardinal picking at fallen leaves with lackluster effort, she suddenly dashes out from the shrubs, scaring away the bird and catching me off guard. I perk up, and for a brief, bewildering moment, I meet her eyes — alert, savage, filled with exhilaration. She blinks once, then with a swift turn of her lithe figure, vanishes again. 

The next day, the human shows me a flyer with her picture, titled: Lost Cat. 

She’s not lost, I think with a pang of jealousy. She just lives a truer life now.