I was hanging up my cellphone and moving to find my lost spot in a novel when I looked up to see a black cat staring at me from the back patio. The back patios in our complex were designed with cheap wood painted a dull gray-brown that seemed to hint of a light purple in another life, boxing in a dirty slab of concrete lined on two sides by dirt, a conditioning unit hidden in a corner. I suppose some neighbors might have gone so far as to install sod, others decorating with Christmas lights, most likely housing beer pong tables for the games college kids like to play.

I’d just taken a call from Kyle on my cell phone. When I answered, not recognizing the area code or number, surprised by his voice on the other end, I realized that I didn’t remember ever giving him my number, nor did I remember him ever asking for it. But the thought was lost after hellos when he said,

“Katie, I was wondering if you might be able to help me with something down the road.”

“I guess that would depend on what it was.”

I could hear him smile on the other end of the phone. “I’m in a summer phil class on phenomenology, are you familiar with it?”

“Never heard of it.”

“No worries. It’s essentially a branch of philosophy that studies consciousness, if we can trust perception, the nature of the subjective and how it might extend to our reality and environment.”

“That’s all Greek to me, Kyle.”

He laughed. I sighed. I might have finally gotten a good night’s sleep, devoid of nightmares, and awoken at a reasonable hour for the first time in days, but I still felt exhausted and too tired to think.

“It’s alright that you don’t understand much about it for now. It’s essentially about trusting what we see, what consciousness is.”

“Okay.”

“The summer class ends in a month, and in lieu of a final, the professor wants final projects, says we can start them about midway through the class, open ended stuff, very creative, whatever we want to do so long as we run it by him first.”

“And what does this have to do with me?”

“I’ve got an idea for a project and I think you might have a part. I know you have a lot of free time and might be looking for something to do.”

“You’re asking me to help you with a final project for your philosophy class?”

“Pretty much.”

“Kyle, I don’t know two hoots about philosophy or phenology.”

“Phenomenology. And you don’t have to.”

“What’s my role then?”

“I’m not sure yet. I have a general outline in mind but it needs work first, and before diving in, I’d need your word that you’ll go with it.”

“You’re asking me to get on board with a project you won’t tell me about?”

He laughed aloud again. “For now.”

I shrugged, at first wanting to say no, that the whole premise was just too vague and ridiculous. But then I looked around the living room and sighed. It would be nice to have something to preoccupy some of my time. “I suppose.”

“That’s great, Katie! You’re saving my life!”

“Bit of a stretch.”

“Nah, you’re great! I’ll probably talk to you about it again in a couple days?”

“You’re the boss.”

He said goodbye and hung up.  I set the phone on the table next to the couch and caught movement from the corner of my eye out the clear glass door to the patio. A black cat was sitting on the step looking in at me, his head cocked to the left, a thin, feminine neck, big eyes.

“Hey kitty.”

It watched me this way for some collection of seconds before looking away, as if remembering himself, resuming his trek across the concrete to one corner, sniffing, walking to the other, disappearing for a minute or two before sliding beneath the gate, belly low to the ground, a silken black liquid, gone.

It felt weird to be watched. Even by a bold black house cat on the prowl, stopping in to say hello, knocking on a stranger’s back door, looking for a friend. At once the dissonance between association and repulsion overcame me in a way that made my head spin. The nightmare surfaced. I shuddered.

No, it would be good to get on board with Kyle, giving me something to do, helping him somehow with this class project. Enough of these afternoons, staring at cats staring back at me, finding recognition in their eyes. Enough moping and scaring myself.