The Noble cat comes around every day, every day, at the same time. Like it has a watch. A Rolex. Or maybe it can read the time from the clock tower down the way, I don’t know, but the Noble cat comes around every day at the same time. He’s a fat cat. He’s a stray cat. But he knows there are hung over and high college kids without pets of their own to care for, or perhaps they are just projecting their love for the pets they have at home onto him, who knows—well, he does. He’s probably better fed than those pets at home. No dry food for him. Real food. People food.

The Noble cat’s campus—because really, he’s been there longer than any student has—is in a bad place. The campus is the refuge of the haves in the realm of have-nots. Outside the fortress is the slums, the direct result of the celebrity and CEO realm, the Mercedes or Beamer kingdom. The Nordstrom or Bloomingdales dominion. The gated community, private-island, gala invitees.

If you follow the Noble cat, he will lead you to a place that would make any sane person shudder. But the cat, the fat Noble cat, he doesn’t mind. Probably because he doesn’t notice. He is either heading off to eat or to sleep, perfectly content, blind to everything around him—except maybe cars. He’s pretty good at not dying. Or being found and impounded.

Today, the Noble cat took a long cat nap on a coat of an ex-con. The con was dead, but soft. He had fed the cat once, too, but the cat didn’t remember. It just knew the coat was cozy, so cozy—ah! That coat had held up in the homeless-ness well. Another homeless guy would probably take it later. Or the cop who finds him first.

The Noble cat loved people. He loved being pet—and he was pet all the time. He was a pretty kitty, white with a patch of black perfectly centered between his lime-green eyes. He was a clean cat, cleaner than most house cats—he never had a matted hair day in his life. Each day, he would wake from his nap, streeeeeeeetch, and clean up. And every day, at the same time, he comes around, working the crowd, spruced and happy looking. Every day. At the same time. Looking perfect. Perfect. Perfect, and ignorant. As a cat should be.

The Noble cat comes around every day, every day, at the exact same time.