Cat Wars

This place, this country, this region of the world is overrun by cats. Everywhere on University of Haifa's campus there are congregations of cats. This morning I saw three cats run after each other in a single file line. One by one by one. They ran around the corner. They were hidden by the dormitory walls; anyone could hear their shrieks and squalls. Recently, I found out that it was mating season for these cats. The men are fighting other men, competing with each other for access to the women. The female cats sit peacefully in the trees beneath the moonlight while lumpen street cats sink their claws into each other, wailing and moaning for survival, for the passage of their genetic material into the future, a world that they will never see as time slowly kills them.

Cats are always digging in the garbage for food.

This Happened on the Twelfth of February. It was Written at 4:35pm on the Beach of Haifa, Israel

I just touched the Mediterranean Sea for the very first time after hours of hiking down the bushy thorny mountain. We started at the Carmel Park that sits across the street from the University on the tallest summit in Haifa. I saw trees I've never seen, bushes of thorns indigenous to this part of the world, a species of bushes that were probably used to crown Jesus as he walked towards enlightening death.

I'm not religious.

Coming down, we found civilization. Simple cafes, gas stations, Russians, Ethiopians, roundabouts. We crossed train tracks, a busy highway and now I sit on a rock, moist from the Mediterranean Sea Spray. Je regarde les vagues calmes viennent a moi comme je regarde le soleil dans le ciel. The sun will be setting soon. The bright luster, the blinding magnificence of the sun that sends a myriad of twinkles from my feet all the way to the horizon - All this will become orange and pink, all this will soften into scarlet indigo. All this will lead to distant stars, little twinkles in the deep navy blue sky as if the twinkles I see now on the sea will separate and rise to give light to the night.

The Middle Eastern Sunset just like any Sunset.

After the day, before the night, I find myself staring at all that which is vast like the gliding clouds beneath pockets of orange, blotches of the sunset's fiery magenta.