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.

Purpose Driven

 Purpose Driven

In the bicentennial year,
when flags bloomed like bright weeds
from porches, windows, courthouse lawns,
Katya moved through the city
like a small question with whiskers,
listening.

She met a man whose thirty years on Wall Street
had folded shut like a ledger at dusk;
his good shoes still shone,
but accusation followed him
like rainwater in the seams.

She met a young woman carrying degrees
as carefully as glass bowls,
only to find the cupboards bare,
the jobs gone thin as soup,
the food-stamp office lit with tired fluorescent mercy.

She met a mother of five
with three jobs knotted to her back,
her children turning keys in empty kitchens,
learning too young
how silence can sound like supper.

Rich or poor, guilty or only tired,
they carried trouble in different pockets.
Some hid it under laughter,
some under lies,
some under the hard bread of habit.

And then there was Gina—
wealthy Gina,
who lived behind gates polished bright as silver,
where roses climbed the walls
and silence learned to keep secrets.

She wore pearls at dinner
like small moons at her throat,
smiled when the room expected smiling,
and lifted crystal glasses
with hands that had learned to steady themselves.
Her house held marble floors,
fresh flowers,
locked doors,
and words sharp enough
to leave bruises no mirror could prove.
But somewhere inside her,
a window had not closed.

It was Gina who made Katya stop,
who taught her that suffering could wear perfume,
ride in black cars,
and sit beneath chandeliers without being seen.
Pity became purpose,
not like thunder,
but like a match struck in a dark room
small at first,
then certain enough
to show the way out.
No one would think to ask a cat for help;
cats belonged on windowsills,
in alleys,
in stories told to children.

What could a cat do
against fear dressed as marriage,
against a voice that closed doors,
against a mansion that felt smaller than a cage?
Perhaps not break the lock.
Perhaps not silence the voice.
But perhaps she could sit at Gina’s feet
until Gina remembered
she was not alone.

And perhaps, one morning,
Gina would open the smallest door first
a phone call,
a packed bag,
a name trusted enough to say aloud
and the house that had kept her
would become only a house,
while the road beyond it
opened like sunrise.

But Katya was brilliant
in the quiet way moonlight is brilliant
on a kitchen floor at midnight.
And Tiki, tall enough for foot pedals,
drove the Time Machine
while she planned beside him,
her paws folded like prayers.

He gave her more than motion,
more than miles bending backward.
He gave her friendship,
that small, steady lantern
money cannot buy,
and loneliness cannot blow out.

Wild Thing...You Make Katya's Heart sing

 Wild Thing…You Make Katya’s Heart Sing

This morning I was greeted by a rabbit.

He looked me up and down,
didn't bother with a hello,
judged me completely,
then hopped off
into the green jungle—

the jungle that will
soon disappear,

the jungle that provides
shade from the blistering sun,

the jungle that is also
a luxury condominium
for snakes
and other mysterious creatures
of the wild ilk.

Don't get me wrong.

Katya likes wild.

She likes birdsong,
time travel,
and trees that mind their own business.

She does not like
sharing her quiet,
her porch,
or her abode
with freeloading wildlife.

A heroine needs personal space.

How else is she supposed to create
fantastical stories—
stories of hope,
of inspiration,
stories where the heroine
or her cat
wins?

The rabbit, however,
is a terrible villain.

Sure,
he'll nibble your prize-winning flowers,
stare at you like you owe him rent,
and disappear into the shrubbery
before the HOA can identify him.

But that's where the criminal enterprise ends.

Rabbits are pets,
for crying out loud.

Mice—
now those are villains.

They eat plastic.

They poop in your kitchen drawers.

They carry viruses.

They hollow out your couch,
move into the stuffing,
and leave tiny deposits

to commemorate the occasion.

Mice are the politicians
of the animal kingdom.

They ruin your day,
promise they're gone,
then show up again
for a return engagement.

Get a cat.

Let Katya write.

Kill the mice.

Have some peace.