The road had narrowed until it became difficult to tell whether it was still public or whether we had wandered into somebody’s yard. We pulled over beside a small house to reconsider. That was when the kitten arrived. It was grey, white, slightly dusty, and utterly uninterested in boundaries. Within seconds it had climbed onto a bench, crossed the table, and begun chewing the corner of our map.
A woman came out laughing. She removed the kitten, apologized, and asked where we were trying to go. When we told her, she pointed back toward the road we had just rejected. Then she brought tea. Her husband joined us. Then a neighbour. Then two children who wanted to know where we came from and why our pronunciation was so bad. The directions took thirty seconds. The conversation took the afternoon.
We learned that the kitten had been found under a truck two weeks earlier and had since appointed itself manager of the property. It slept in the shade, attacked shoelaces, and returned repeatedly to our map.
By the time we left, the road ahead mattered less. We had lost several hours and gained the name of a village, a place to eat, and strict instructions to return when the fruit was ripe. The kitten did not say goodbye. Management rarely does.
