Friday, 20 August 2004 | The meal

I often carry a can in my bag, in case I see any stray cats. There are so many stray cats in this city.

I do it as much for me as I do it for them; it's so satisfying to watch a hungry animal excitedly fill its belly with food that you set out for it, and it only costs 50 cents. Fifty cents will buy you gum, an apple, a Homie, a piece of zucchini, four Miss Pac-Man lives, or a full cat belly.

There is an alley along the back and one side of my building. The door to the alley is always open, which means that anything that can get into the alley can get into my building, and vice versa. So far, the only creatures I've seen in the alley are cats. I've only seen one cat ever enter the building, and it darted back out as soon as it saw me.

Last night around 2 a.m. I was standing in my kitchen, near the door to my apartment, when I called my cat's name, attempting to coax her out from under the bed. My cat didn't respond, but a cat in the hallway started meowing like a fire truck. I opened the door a couple of inches and saw a desperate-looking striped gray animal rubbing up against my door frame. "Hold on," I said, and ran to get the food remaining from my cat's pre-diabetes days.

I squatted in the doorway, offered handfuls of food, and watched as the stray ravenously gulped down the pellets and produced strange little cat grunts. I sat there for a long time, doling out handful after handful; its appetite was impressive. "It's a stray from the alley," I said to a neighbor, and then another, who passed by. Each smiled.

The cat sucked down food like a vacuum cleaner, affectionately butted its head up against my hand, and resumed, before eventually disappearing. On my way to bed, I left a small amount of food and water in the hallway, just in case.

This morning the remaining food and water were gone. Sort of. Some of the food was there, but in a slightly different form, as if it had been mixed with acid from a cat's stomach. Six piles of it.

I swept it up.