Orange Tabby

When I was younger, I lived in a house on the other side of town. I also had a kitten. A pretty, orange, male tabby. In our neighborhood, cats would come up missing. Turns out, a Vietnam war vet was catching the cats and—most likely—eating them. Unfortunately, all our cats were always outdoor cats.

My cat disappeared one day, as had all the family's cat. We had lost about 4 cats by this time. Facing facts, we went and got a new cat, whom we decided would be an inside cat. She was a sweet calico cat. We named her Cricket.

A year or so after getting her, we moved to a new house. It wasn't but a few days in that house that I was sleeping in my room, the window of which faces toward the street. Cricket was in the room, but started hissing at the window.

Curious, I checked out the window and there was an old tabby cat outside. When it saw me, it started to rub against the outside of the window. Cricket slunk over to the corner and hissed constantly.

After a few moments of watching the cat, I went to the front door to see if it had a tag.

When I looked outside, there was nothing. No cat. I've never seen that cat since then, and no one in that neighborhood ever had such a cat.

I'll be damned if it didn't look like my old cat, visiting me one last time.