Thursday's Stray

The email had landed at 4:58 PM—just late enough that Karen had already left for the day. 'Unfortunately, due to restructuring...' The corporate euphemisms blurred together as Mara sat at her desk, the orange she'd brought for lunch rolling forgotten across her keyboard. It had been her friend who'd cc'd her on the termination notice. Her friend who'd suggested she take the client meeting that morning, the one where apparently she'd 'misaligned with company values.'

Now it was midnight, and Mara was packing her box. The office was silent except for the hum of servers and the distant sirens of Chicago. She'd grabbed the orange on her way out—a childish impulse, taking something that belonged to the building that no longer wanted her.

The alley behind her apartment complex smelled of wet concrete and exhaust. That's where she saw it: a scrawny thing, matted gray fur, one ear permanently folded. A cat, watching her with weary yellow eyes. Mara crouched, extending the orange like an offering. The cat approached slowly, sniffing her fingers before butting its head against her palm.

'Still hungry, huh?' she whispered, tearing into the fruit. The cat ate the segments delicately, almost formally, as if this were a proper dinner and not a stranger's pity in an alleyway.

Mara's phone buzzed—Karen, finally responding to her texts from earlier. 'So sorry about today. Let me take you to dinner next week, my treat.' The text was followed by that crying emoji that people used when they wanted to seem sympathetic without actually feeling anything.

She deleted the message. The cat finished the last piece of orange and settled beside her, purring against her leg. In the morning, she'd figure out unemployment, and rent, and whether her skills were transferable to anything besides a company that discarded people like used toner cartridges. But tonight, sitting on a dirty crate in a dark alley with a stray cat and sticky orange fingers, Mara didn't feel alone. Sometimes, she thought, you find the truest things in the rubble. The cat closed its eyes. She scratched behind its folded ear and watched the streetlights flicker on, one by one.