There's a stray that sends a screeching, scraping yowl grinding down my spine at night as I no friend of cats (nor any other beast if truth be told) supinely ceiling-watch as sleep slip-slides away. Three weeks of this, and then a month! A new home of all-hour-interruptions like that of newborn parents but without cherubic smiles and tiny grasping doll-hands, circling my finger, rendering wakefulness worthwhile. Then one day across the gap-toothed paling fence I aired my grievance to a neighbour. He nodded, sagely, but I could tell full agreement was withheld. After a pause, he told me my tormentor had been abandoned by the couple I'd replaced. Ever since, my good neighbour had, pity-struck, fed, and tended the cat while I had moaned saving pity only for myself. The cat still yelps, scrapes, screams, but somehow its fur has grown more lustrous, and today, I surprised myself; on my way out the porch, I reached down ran my fingers through its coat, and was rewarded with a powerful, pent-up purr.