He died.

What he liked best was being petted, I mean my magisterial scratching and kneading of his ribs, stomach, backbone, hips—above all, the scraping I gave, almost unwillingly, to the zone where his chin met his teeth. His trot, quite stiff for one so young, always amused me. His adoptive mother, a cool calico, tolerated his boyish displays of aggression; they were always halfhearted. Likewise, when I had him on his back and he decided I'd gone a bit too far with my tummy work or rib plucking, he'd make a play for my hand and arm with his forelimbs, kicking at me with aftlimbs like a kangaroo, but always with his claws sheathed.

I miss him.

He liked to crouch at the edge of the gravel pit and ogle the birded branches of the overhanging tree. As the towhees and mockingbirds hopped from nest to branch, he'd helplessly mew. Did he ever kill one? I don't know. The only victim I saw him with was a Polyphylla decemlineata, and that awkward stridulating beetle I quickly separated from its tormentor. He often meowed for no apparent reason; on that occasion he meekly and mutely received my scolding.

I don't know what killed him, but that morning he was out of sorts, later that day he vomited, and then he was simply gone.

He was black, with a slender white V on his breast and a similar pattern near his groin. When his mouth was shut, the tips of his upper canines sometimes protruded just slightly beyond his lips, so I fondly addressed him as Blacula.

His adoptive mother seems cool as ever since his disappearance on August 4. But she does warble an odd meow I never before heard from her.