Roof Cats

Street cats have that half-forgotten grace, honed by freedom and danger. Yes, no guarantees, and not always a full stomach. Though in Ban Khrua cats are community members by default, and never go without food. No delicacies, of course, but no going hungry either. Their status is somewhere between street and house cats. Roof cats – that’s the correct term. The roofs of the one- and two-story wooden houses, packed together, belong to them.

And somehow their life appeals to me more than the couch existence of house cats. Yes, nobody treats them to five kinds of food, nobody babies them, but they are fully autonomous, independent persons – not somebody’s fluffy toys. And what they deserve is not pity but respect.