Cheep cheep, the birds raucously chirp outside our windows. Cat comes running at the sound, showing enormous enthusiasm and curiosity. His jowls will not stop quivering, his eyes sparkle, and he wants nothing more than to lunge at our feathered friends. Unfortunately for him, they are in the sky, out of reach but in sight. He can only stare in frustration, his claws skittering on the glass.

And still the birds cry out, fluttering back and forth in the open air. Two or three one way, a lone bird the other. On the sill, Cat isn’t still for a single moment but leaps this way and that too. His body twists to keep up with their flight paths, his head swaying this way and that, like a metronome. The birds don’t so much as glance at Cat; his excitement is entirely unreciprocated.

There are times when the windowsill becomes a stage with a beam of sun in place of a spotlight, illuminating Cat so every strand of fur boasts a radiant sparkle, a cloud of light encircling him brilliantly. Cat seems to be wearing a rhinestone-studded outfit, a shimmering layer every bit as dazzling as the most famous star.

The sounds emerging from Cat’s lips at these times are no longer meows but chirps, and the corners of his mouth twitch as his regular speech is tempered into song. His body gyrates without his realizing it, echoing the flap of bird wings, trying to incorporate everything about them into himself.

And still the birds soar past again and again, cheep cheep, ignoring Cat’s blandishments.

Cat is fully consumed by his performance, demonstrating all kinds of skills. Now he crouches with a fixed stare, now he flings himself at the glass, now he claws at the firmament, trying by any means to get closer to the birds or at least to earn their approval. He also hopes that by flapping his paws in this way, they’ll somehow sprout into wings and allow him to ascend so he can frolic with the birds on high. Spotted from a distance, Cat looks like he’s attempting a rather beautiful jig.

Cat will never get his paws on a bird, but that doesn’t stop him from trying. He is intelligent enough that it’s entirely within the realm of possibility that he’s already worked out the distance between himself and the birds, measured with his quivering whiskers. He might understand it’s an impossible task, which has become the basis of this performance, but has become so committed to his role that he is unable to extricate himself, and so must continue till he’s expended every last bit of energy in his body. Only then can he find peace.

By the time he achieves this, the birds will have flown away. Fully spent, Cat slumps limply, recalling the performance he’s just enacted, a solo show with the birds for unwitting scene partners.

The curtain slowly falls. Having become part of Cat’s theater, even the birds’ departure is an aesthetic marvel.

A flock of gray-brown birds limned by the setting sun, their wings ferrying glimmers of light that slowly melt into their feathers, transfiguring them into flying beings of gold. They swoop farther and farther away, finally disappearing into a crimson cloud.