Short Folk #16: Cat in the Orchard in the Fog

It was early and he was in the backseat of a car, coming back from somewhere he shouldn’t have been. The woman he shouldn’t have been with was in the passenger seat, and her boyfriend was driving. The boyfriend didn’t know anything. 

He reached up from the backseat to rub the shoulders of the woman in front of him. Her shoulders tensed when he touched her. He was so brash in the early morning and in the knowledge of what they had done that he continued rubbing her shoulders. 

“Getting a little friendly there aren’t we” said the boyfriend. 

“Getting a little possessive there aren’t we” he shot back. 

But still he let go of her shoulders and pushed back into his seat, a bit petulant. After all, the punk had no idea. 

Then everyone in the car was silent. He looked out the window. They were driving slow along thin country roads. A low orchard was passing by. It was so early there were tiny clouds all along the ground, pockets of mist that settled into depressions or hovered among the roots and trunks of the squat trees. He saw a cat, a housecat, but lean and feral looking, stalking with quiet paws in the fog and the wet earth under the trees. It was so cautious in its steps, and so focused. Cat in an orchard in the fog, hunting with quiet paws. 

The complete image sobered him and he turned forward and saw the brown pony tail of the girl and her left hand holding the right hand of her boyfriend. All his brashness left him. It was so early, and he was in the backseat of a car coming back from somewhere he never should have been. 

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Composition Notes; 

This is a very old idea but the first time I've written it into a story. The experience comes from something similar (but much less promiscuous) I lived in College. I was coming back from a friends house and I was giddy and brash in the morning, just too comfortable. Then I saw this image and it stuck with me. I was trying to capture that moment, the moment when confidence or arrogance leaves you in the face of something sobering.  

Wrote it for about a half an hour yesterday, then slept on the idea and finished it up in about a half an hour this morning.  I'm still reading the "Wind-up Bird Chronicle" by Murakami, and I think this is still very influenced by that.   Oh and I'm eating some super high quality soup right now in some great company,  so maybe that has something to do with it.