They stand on the roof edge of the condominiums that lie between my building and the river. Canada Geese, a mating pair staring and hissing two stories down at Ginger, domestic cat.
Ginger, she owns these buildings. She roams freely on and off the elevators, up and down the halls. Just last week she let out a meow on the other side of my door. She did not want to come in. She had simply grown impatient waiting for the elevator doors to open. She knew I was there, on the other side of the my door and she was going to demand my attention and command my performance to send her back to the ground floor, back to her Bonnie and Bert.
In the morning Bert steps out his ground floor deck for a smoke and to inspect the yard between these buildings, his responsibilities. Ginger always steps out to keep his company and to lord over the building that is her domain.
Recently she has had to guard her realm from these interlopers, these seasonal menace to her world. Who are these giant birds? How dare they invade her territory, her responsibility. How dare they hiss at her from the safe perch of the roof edge. Are the chicken? Why will they not come down and fight properly?
She hisses back. An orchestration of honk, hiss, meow, hiss reverberates between the buildings wafting upwards to my vantage point nine floors up. I am tempted to join in, to honk meow howl and hiss, to cause further confusion to the animals establishing their place.
I do not. They will work it out. These birds, this cat, they will let each other know they are each there and they both deserve a place in this space. They will grow to respect and cooperate. Unlike we humans they are not competitive. In time these birds will become wards of Ginger. She will grow to accept them as part of her building and she will guard over them and their pending goslings as if they were her own.
Her neat little world: humanus branta felis catus consensus.
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