The cat remains on the balcony. He has learned the exact length of shade cast by the railing at noon, the tremor of the neighbour’s footsteps, the slow arithmetic of hunger. His body fits the night the way a sentence fits its margin. I have kept the door closed for reasons that arrange themselves neatly when spoken aloud. Inside, the floor stays unscarred. The furniture forgets. Order persists. Sometimes, when the city thins into sirens and sleep, I imagine a sound interrupting the dark— wood meeting bone, a cry rising with the accuracy of memory. His eyes, I imagine, stay open. Not wide. Only fixed, holding the light from the window the way a basin holds water it cannot lift. The cry comes late. Thin. Accurate. In that instant, he would know the geometry of the house, the warmth pooled behind the glass, the shape of my name as something once useful. The balcony holds its breath. The night resumes its commerce. No door opens. By morning, there is only fur brushed against metal, and the...