And the City Slept Beneath Part 2

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She had seen him before he saw her. A man who moved across the rooftops at night, as if he knew where he was going. Not young. Not old. He, too, was in between. He carried no backpack, no hat, no hurry. Just a threadbare coat and a cigarette that rarely lit but often lay between his fingers, like a relic from a time when something mattered. The cat had first mistaken him for a shadow. Then for a thief. But he stole nothing, except a few seconds from the darkness—always when he paused and looked up at the sky, as if searching there for something that couldn't be put into words. He didn't come every night. But often enough. And over time, she sat in the same place when he appeared. Not closer. Not further away. A silent agreement between two creatures who wanted nothing from each other—except perhaps for the other to stay. It was on one of those nights when he suddenly stopped and said: "I know you're here." The cat didn't move. It only twitched its tail barely noticeably, as if to say: Me too. "You remind me of someone," he said then, without looking at her. "She had the same way of sitting. As if she didn't belong to the world, but was just visiting for a moment." He sat down, not far away, and stretched out his legs, as if he had forgotten that beneath him lay only bricks and the depths. "Her name was Mira," he said after a while. "She was too fast for me. Too beautiful, too real. I let her go because I thought it was wise. And now I don't even remember what kind of laugh she had." The cat blinked slowly. Mira. The name felt familiar, like a sound you hear in a dream and can't name later. The man looked up at the sky. The moon hung there like a silent witness—knowing, but silent. "I used to think memories were like photographs. You can look at them whenever you want. But that's a lie. They fade. They... distort." He was silent for a while. Then he did look at her. "But you... you look like you can remember." The cat stood up, slowly, gracefully. She took a single step closer. Not out of pity. Not out of comfort. Only because she understood how difficult memories could be when no one shared them. And when the wind picked up again, catching itself between ridges and chimneys and playing with the leaves as if they were lost names, the two of them just sat there—two silhouettes against the endless night.