Cadiz, late November 2008: there was a sound of scuffling nearby – that is in the area between the door generally open onto the main street and the closed wrought iron and glass one which opens into the house – so I went to investigate. I had heard what seemed like voices and some little feet retreating rapidly up the street.

What did I find? A diminutive black kitten had been dumped at my door. It had been left there in a cheap red and yellow plastic cage. Nearby there was a bag of pellets, a bag of sand … and a letter. It was brief but correctly written, and the message it conveyed expressed regret that the owner could no longer keep the kitten. Would I help?

I had had plenty of cats before, but that had been in Australia. There I had lived in an outer Melbourne suburb, in a detached house with half an acre of garden. That had allowed comfortably for a pet-keeping situation. But now I was living in a semi-detached house with no garden – and nobody to help. I had decided I was in no position to keep a cat again, both for its own sake and for my own convenience.

So I put the cat, the cage and the accompanying paraphernalia onto the pavement. I trusted that someone else would be moved to collect it. Who knows? Maybe the very individuals responsible for the dumping would come back to see what had happened … and repossess it all.

Nothing happened. It was night. It was raining. The wind was blowing. It was winter. And it was not exactly warm. After a seemingly interminable wait … I relented. I collected the cat and its belongings from the street, and brought them inside. Noche as I came to call it, being black and a creature of the night, had taken up residence.

Vol.9 THE NATURAL WORLD The Bestiary 2  – poems about Noche, from A to Z.