10/11 Link has been meowing at the top of his lungs, but also from the back of his throat, for many nights now. As if he was trying to push this as yet very rudimentary communication system of cats several steps up the evolutionary ladder by sheer force of will. It got so bad that we took him to a vet hospital with an emergency service this morning, a drive of forty minutes in pouring rain with wipers thumping.

I estimated his chances of coming back with us alive at maybe fifty percent. But the vet couldn’t find anything. His bloodwork is okay. It is very likely dementia. He’s old, he’s losing his grip on the world, a sundowner, as the vet said.

Before today, I wasn’t aware that pets usually survive a trip to the vet. My only such visit before had been with Link’s brother Met a few years ago, and he had to be put to sleep right away, something none of us had quite expected even an hour earlier.

When Link moved around tonight, when he sat on my armchair for a while as I was playing piano, there was something supernatural about it. It felt unreal for him to be alive, just as it would have felt unreal for him to be dead.