In the liquid light of evening the small black cat is hunting a carpenter ant, her eyes so wide, her mouth slightly open after the ant, her tail straight out behind her. The carpenter ant lands and the cat grabs it with her mouth, drops it, lets it fly away, grabs it again, puts a paw on it, loses interest. The carpenter ant knocks against the small black cat’s foot and the cat remembers, pushes down with her foot, snap, crunch, swallows the ant.

We are underwater, the small black cat, the remains of the carpenter ant (there’s a wing left on the ground), me, drowned in the end of the day. The cat and I gulp great lungfuls of water in, sift it for oxygen, force it out again, wave slightly back and forth with the currents. The tide seizes the wing of the carpenter ant (all that’s left) and throws it against the small black cat, who cowers and runs under one of the cars. They might be reefs, we might be monsters down where the darkness has weight, texture, meaning. What is one ant measured against all that a cat is?