Everywhere I go in Romania, there seem to be cats. They stretch across sunlit steps, curl themselves into café chairs, disappear beneath parked cars, and nap against old stone walls as though they have inherited the streets. Some clearly belong to someone, while others seem to belong to a courtyard, an apartment block, a restaurant, or perhaps simply themselves. What fascinates me is not their presence so much as the small infrastructure of care that surrounds them. I notice

Every October, the warnings return: keep your black cats inside. Be careful about adopting them out too close to Halloween. Pagans, witches, or Satanists might be looking for animals to harm or sacrifice. There is remarkably little evidence behind these claims. Animal welfare organizations have challenged them for years, yet the warning survives because the black cat already occupies a particular place in our imagination. We have been taught for centuries that a black cat bel

Cat, watcher in the half-light, you move like a shadow that chose its own shape, fur humming with the memory of danger, eyes catching what the human heart refuses to see. You are not only graceful, but a mystery the one who waits, who sees before acting, who knows what silence conceals. Your stillness is not peace. It is a listening, a poised breath between worlds, the moment before truth startles into motion. Once, they feared you. They burned your kind for choosing solitud