After the Dog Days

 After the Dog Days

There comes a morning

with no alarm
except birds
arguing over berries.

The clocks still turn,

but none of them
are hers.

No one is waiting
for the expected mistake.

No invisible hand
tugs the string.

No audience

keeps score.

The old life
becomes a weather report
from another valley—

perhaps true,
perhaps exaggerated,
certainly distant.

Katya lives
where time has softened.

She knows the paths
between moments
the way other cats
know garden walls.

She naps
inside forgotten afternoons.

She drinks
from rainstorms
that have not yet reached
the ground.

She remembers futures
that never happened

and mourns them
only briefly.

Freedom,
she discovers,

is not escaping time.

It is no longer
being pulled through it.

The great machinery
continues somewhere.

Names rise.

Empires fall.

People spend lifetimes
trying to become
the center
of stories.

Katya
becomes impossible
to center.

She belongs
to windowsills,
to moonlit roofs,

to libraries
where the oldest books
have forgotten
who wrote them.

Children sometimes
catch sight of her.

They swear
the silver cat
was there

before they opened the gate,

and somehow

already waiting
on the other side.

Old women smile
when she appears.

"Ah," they whisper,
"you're still traveling."

Katya never answers.

Cats have always known
that silence
is the safest passport.

Years become feathers.

Centuries

become dust motes
turning in warm light.

She carries
no revenge.

It would be too heavy.

She carries
only curiosity—

the one possession
that grows lighter
the farther one walks.

Sometimes,
on the longest evenings,

she returns

not to interfere,

not to warn,

not even
to remember—

but to sit quietly
outside the house
where her younger self
still believes
every shadow
must belong
to something larger.

She watches
the frightened cat

stare into the dark.

She wishes
she could speak.

Instead,

she stretches,
closes her eyes,

and leaves behind
a single white whisker
on the doorstep.

Enough
for the younger one
to wonder

if perhaps

there is a future

where she survives
all of this.

And somewhere
beyond the reach
of every net,

every story,

every hand
that ever mistook
love for ownership,

Katya curls herself
into the shape
of a question mark

beneath a sun
that has forgotten
how to set.

For the first time,

time
goes looking
for her.

Insider Trading

 Insider Trading

Katya shook her head.

Why is it
some people slip through every crack,
while others can't even jaywalk
without the universe keeping score?

Her newest client belonged to the second kind.

He looked guilty
even when innocence sat beside him.

Katya had rules.
First, listen.
Then decide whether fate itself
needed a correction.

His story landed like broken glass.

He had married young.
He loved his wife.
Their child was ill,
and the bills rose faster than hope.

Somewhere, the universe had tilted.

Katya and Tiki had a time machine,
not for changing history,
but for nudging it back into alignment.

Yet every answer carried a price.

Do they save the child
by finding the hidden mutation
before it awakens?

Do they expose Darrin's secret
before it becomes insider trading?

Does Julia discover a truth
that sends her walking away?

Or is the real culprit
someone who hasn't even entered the story?

The timeline refuses to answer.

It only asks riddles.

Some debts are paid with money.
Some with time.
Some with love.

And somewhere between one heartbeat
and the next,

Katya must decide

which future deserves to exist.

Blank

 Blank

Face it, Gina
you are clueless,
the perfect rube
for his brutality.
And not much has changed.

You tried to leave,
but he kept pulling you
back into the maze,
where every exit
looked like forgiveness
and every promise
turned into another wall.

You stayed mired in the bog
for years,
calling survival

something nobler than fear.

Now you're old.
The Rose of Rosendale
has wilted,
yet somehow
you're still wet behind the ears,
still believing
the next apology
might bloom into spring.

It's 101 degrees, baby.
Maybe you could cool off
in the Dunk Tank,
let the shock
wake you from yourself.

Forget the past.
It has already taken

more than its share.

Hypnotize yourself.
Plan a future.
Hop on a new freight train
one that doesn't circle back
to the same forgotten station.

Wreck what's left
in cat years,
shed every borrowed skin,
and walk away.

You do remember
how to walk away,
don't you?

Because the door
was never locked

Only your hope was.

Crepuscular

 Crepuscular

Katya was naturally hardwired to be most active during the twilight hours of dawn and dusk. Tiki was not. Their different rhythms caused more than a few hiccups.

Tiki was diurnal. He rose early each morning to fish in the pond, where he loved catching tilapia and catfish. By dusk, however, he was exhausted, snoring like a buzz saw before Katya's night had even begun.

Although he had been born in Indonesia, Tiki rarely spoke of his past. Katya simply called him "Cousin," and that became their truth, especially during difficult times.

One of those times came during the U.S. Bicentennial. Katya had just celebrated her own two-hundredth birthday. Returning from a 

nighttime hunt, she proudly left a plump, juicy mouse where Tiki would find it, believing it was a thoughtful gift.

Tiki's response puzzled her. Fastidious to a fault, he calmly picked up the mouse, tossed it over the fence into the farmer's field, dusted off his hands, and returned to fishing as though nothing had happened.

Katya preferred fish herself, but she couldn't understand Tiki's complete distaste for the mouse. Rather than confront him, she filed the mystery away. Perhaps the answer lay somewhere in the past.

So they climbed into the Time Machine.

Their destination was New York Harbor during the Bicentennial celebration, where the Tall Ships filled the harbor with towering masts and billowing sails. It was there they first met Gina.

Gina was young, beautiful, and painfully naïve. Having lived a sheltered life, she was unprepared for someone like Anthony.

Anthony was older, confident, and controlling from the very beginning. He believed Gina needed to be shaped into someone more like himself. She resisted in small ways, but he remained convinced she was trainable.

Katya found humans endlessly fascinating. Their mistakes, misunderstandings, and emotional entanglements were often more entertaining than anything she encountered on her nightly prowls. But there was one thing she could not tolerate: cruelty 

masquerading as love.

She watched Anthony begin a familiar routine. He blamed Gina, pointed accusing fingers, and raised his voice.

"What are you talking about, Anthony?" Gina asked, genuinely confused.

"It isn't what you did," he replied. "It's what you didn't do."

The accusation made no sense because there was nothing Gina could have done. Anthony wasn't reacting to reality; he was creating a problem she could never solve.

Katya had seen enough to recognize the pattern. When Anthony behaved this way, the safest response was to avoid eye contact, say little, and wait for the storm to pass.

But Gina didn't know that. Like a mouse caught in a trap, she searched desperately for the mistake she believed she must have made.

Why is he so angry? she wondered.  I need to understand what went wrong so I can fix it.

There was no riddle to solve. The problem was Anthony himself—a controlling man, exactly the kind her father had once warned her about.

Watching Gina struggle awakened something in Katya. What had begun as a search for answers about Tiki's mysterious past became something much larger. She became determined to save Gina from a life she could not yet recognize as dangerous.

Tiki, whether he fully understood Katya's mission or not, came along for the ride.

Their misadventures would last a very long time.

 

Blue State of Mind

 Blue State of Mind

The bleeding hearts and forget-me-nots have not bloomed.

How can this be?

It is September 2025.

The war has not happened yet.

Gas is cheaper for the moment.

I do not have to listen to a calm voice

still draping a silk sheet over the obvious

while its weather gathers at the door

Oh, happier day, while the weather gathered

So get to work on something that will not fold.

If you want greatness,

then alter the course of history.

Come up with answers that can stand in daylight.

Real answers. Real solutions.

For problems already licking at the frame.

We’ll keep the time.