Two minutes ago, the kitty cat from the fifth floor leaped out of the window.

A shriek lodged like a fish bone in my throat but never reached the air. Everything around me remained silent. Mouth agape, I stood rooted to the spot, only my eyeballs moving to follow the cat’s flight path. Those few seconds might have lasted years.

Into my brain flashed various images, each more gruesome than the last. My hairs stood on end. What my eyes had seen, my brain extrapolated—several outcomes for each scenario. What would the actual ending be? How would all these moments combine to form a single event? I had no way of knowing, nor did I want to imagine.

I opened my eyes as wide as possible just as the large cat soared overhead, limbs outstretched, as if invisible webbing had sprouted between its front and rear legs so that it might be able to glide smoothly down on the air currents if it kept its limbs rigid. There actually is a thin membrane between cat claws like duck webbing, and the whole time it forced its toes apart, trying to catch the wind.

Observing this scene, I decided without question that cats were flying creatures, and this one would be able to touch down, not stopping unless it wanted to; if it never stopped, the outcomes in my brain would never transpire. I wanted it to plunge like this forever, a perpetual motion machine, never slowing.

For just this moment, I felt the ease and lightness of this form of flying and no longer needed to know how we’d ended up here, or why the cat had decided to exit through the window rather than taking the stairs or elevator.

Enchanted, I stared at the cat, stretching out those few seconds, which dilated so much that the cat stopped falling. As for where it soared off to, when it would finally descend, I wasn’t concerned. The only thing I cared about was that the cat was flying.

In reality, the cat swiftly became a free-falling object with a terminal velocity, and the arc of its trajectory described a perfect parabola. Even so, I couldn’t stop myself from shutting my eyes the instant the cat hit the ground. Surely the image would completely shatter at this moment.

Then I slowly opened my eyes and found the image still intact—and the cat unharmed. There was a glimmer of terror in its eyes, but that too quickly dissipated. Surveying its new surroundings, it located an exit and scampered out of sight.

Flying had protected the cat, I thought, but I couldn’t be sure. I looked down at my watch. Five minutes to eight—I’d woken earlier than usual, but there was no way I could get back to sleep, so I decided to go for a walk. The vegetable market closest to the flat should be open by now, I thought, but I couldn’t be sure of that either.

Returning to my building with a bag of groceries, I heard my neighbors discussing what happened that morning, describing what they’d witnessed: how a cat flew past their windows, like a miracle. The story took a turn and landed upon a barrage of blame for the cat owner. My groceries and I followed everyone into the elevator. I filtered out their criticisms of the human and caught hold of every mention of the soaring cat until I was able to piece together in my brain the cat’s entire arc. Standing in the elevator as it began to rise, I felt myself take off too.