Noktah.

There were two pieces of grey newspaper on the road, illuminated stark white by my car's headlights. I remembered wondering why one of them looked so lumpy, ballooned up by some weird gust of wind, in permanent pose. I remember asking my brother and father what it could have been, that lump, asking for confirmation that it was just newspaper, mentally scolding myself for forgetting my glasses. I remember the reassurances, of course it's just paper, just keep on driving, we're tired. I remember feeling a distinct bump under the tires, how the car rose and then sunk down again back onto the gravel of the road.

I returned after midnight, to check, and found that it was a cat, wrapped in newspaper. A group of kittens and another female was gazing at it from the side of the road, forlorn, wary of myself. From the tufts of fur sticking out I saw that it was my neighbour's pet; black, male, solid, dead. My breath caught. I would've picked it up, I would've, would've, would've. But it was bloody, splotches of red glistening from the bottom of the newspaper and I didn't have access to water. I tried calling the neighbours, yelling greetings from outside the gate and rang the doorbell as the other cats swept around my legs. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't. What could I? I left.

Frustration pounded at me, like the shrill heavy ringing sounds of a manic gong. Why do these things happen, so hopelessly, so often, out of nowhere? Why wasn't I able to do anything, to at least save the creature, and why the creature in the first place? How is it that we find ourselves so attached to things we can't understand and reprimand ourselves too late when we realise that there are things beyond our control, beyond our point of will. That no matter how much we intend and demand, no matter how much we care, loss is still an incomprehensible definite.