Shizuki Okabe

My cat Ramone slipped out of this world yesterday, and the house hasn’t quite come to terms with it yet. Neither have I. The rooms feel stretched thinner somehow. Like the air shifted and left a space shaped exactly like him. I keep glancing toward his usual spots, half-expecting to see that quiet black shape curled into itself, eyes half-open, pretending not to watch everything. His meows used to break the silence in the gentlest way. Regina moves through the house differently tonight. Slower. Pausing in doorways. Looking toward corners where he used to sit. Animals know. Maybe not in the way we do, but in the way silence changes when someone is missing. She still jumps onto the couch, still walks across the floor, but there’s a rhythm missing beside her, like a duet reduced to a single note. They were two shadows in the same light. Two small heartbeats threading themselves through ordinary days. Mornings before work. Late nights when sleep wouldn’t come. The soft weight of company without conversation. Now there’s one shadow where there used to be two. And somehow that makes the dark feel bigger. I didn’t realize how much of my life was measured in quiet moments with them. The slow blinks, the silent understanding, the way they chose to sit near me when the world felt loud. Ramone carried a calm presence, like dusk settling into a room. Regina still does, but tonight she carries it alone. I hope wherever Ramone is, it’s warm. I hope there’s endless sunlight and something soft beneath him. And I hope Regina, in her own quiet way, feels the love he left behind. The house isn’t empty. But it’s changed. Two black cats became the shape of my everyday life. Now one remains, and the silence where the other should be feels impossibly wide.

Gurgaon is clearly an ancient beast spoken of only in half-remembered prophecies. A many-headed creature of glass and concrete that sheds its skin every fiscal quarter. Those who enter seeking shelter are tested by traffic, construction dust, and trials known only as ‘rent negotiations.’ XD