A Brief Agreement Between Light and Everything Afraid of It

There’s a kitten that waits for me. Black and white. Tuxedo kind. Like the world before colour was invented.

I don’t know if it’s a he or a she, but I call it Private. No reason, the name just stuck. Its eyes blink slower than mine. Sometimes I think it’s seeing things a few seconds before I do.

I’d say I missed it, but that’d be a lie. Private always appears a moment later, as though my shadow had given birth to it.

Every day is the same. I walk by. It stares. Then it runs. Fast. Gone into the bushes. Like we’ve been doing this forever, and neither of us has the guts to change the script. The world feels lighter when it runs. Maybe because it knows what I don’t: how to leave without looking back.

Being with Private is easy. We don’t need anything from each other. I walk. It runs. Nothing more. But there’s something in the stillness, a quiet agreement between two creatures too proud to admit they care.

The sky drips. My reflection trails beside me, half a second late, mouthing things I didn’t say. When I study it, it studies me.

Night drifts wrong. I’m not really walking, more like letting the street do the work. Tried a new route home, thought it’d change something. Spoiler: it didn’t. Didn’t take long to regret that little experiment.

Day broke strangely, Private is gone. Hours blur, buzzing. The place where Private always stands seems faded, like it doesn’t know what to do anymore.

I move more cautiously, hoping the quiet reclaims it. It won’t come.

After a week, I stop pretending. That’s when I end up on a bus. No idea how I got there. One second I’m walking, the next I’m sitting down. Mist hugs the window; lights bend and bloom.

Two people whisper, and I swear one word winked at me. One of them, a fairy, probably, she’s got ears like a fairy, sharp enough to hear the weather complain. She asks, A: “You heard ASAP by NewJeans?” B: “Yeah. Kinda unfair how short it is.”

And I think “Yeah.” That’s how it is with Private, too. Some things are short because they were never meant to explain themselves. If they lasted longer, they wouldn’t feel real.

The two in front finally shut up, miracle of the year. One hums softly: tick tick tock tick tock. Hell, she’s right again. And that’s exactly how Private runs. Tick tick tock tick tock. Then gone.