Cats Eating Birds

           

            On the Saturday morning of July 23rd, Jonquil brought home what I counted as her fourth bird so far this summer. Even when I had five cats they didn’t catch that many birds between them. She always brings each bird to the same spot in the little hallway just inside my apartment door. The first one she just left there for me to dispose of. The second one she ate enough so I could flush the rest down the toilet. The third and fourth ones she ate the whole thing, feathers and all and started whining when there was nothing left.

Later, I ventured out again, like a mad dog into the late afternoon heat.

            On Brock Avenue there was a little old Vietnamese woman who I’ve seen many times with a shopping cart full of beer cans. Behind her was a Vietnamese man, also pushing a shopping cart full of cans and he had the darkest tan I’d ever seen on an East Asian person.

            There was a street festival on Bloor Street and so I couldn’t ride onto Bloor from Brock, so I backtracked to Croatia Street and road east to Dufferin and up onto Bloor. I went to Broadview, then north. On my way up to O’Connor, a passenger in the back seat of a car driving beside me called out, “Hey guy!” I turned my head to see him holding his hand out the window with a cigarette between his fingers, giving me a friendly wave. I rode along O’Connor to Pape, north to the Leaside Bridge and then across to Overlea, where I turned right.

            At Leaside Park there was a picnic going on and the outdoor pool was full of people splashing back the heat. I rode to Don Mills and then Overlea back west again, exploring the side streets to the north. The few streets that run north lead mostly to industrial buildings, except for one that led to an Islamic plaza, with a halal supermarket and a kabab house of the same name: Iqbal. I stopped there to use the washroom. They had no problem with me using the washroom but for some reason they eyed me suspiciously on the way out. Maybe they had expected me to buy something after using their loo.

            I went back to Pape and down to Danforth, west to Bay, south to Dundas, west to Spadina, south to Queen and then west to home.

            I drank my last can of beer with dinner, but when I took my plate out to the kitchen I saw that my upstairs neighbour had left four cans of Bud Light inside my door.

            When I was getting ready for bed, I was flossing my teeth without looking in the mirror and found that there was one gap that I couldn’t push the floss into. I figured there must have been a piece of food blocking the way, so I tried a few times until something popped out into my hand that felt a little harder than a piece of food. It turned out to be a chip from my second right upper incisor. T might have been part of a filling or my tooth but the result was there was a noticeable black hole in my bright, sunny smile. I would have to live with it for the rest of the weekend though because the next day would be Sunday.