“Calling cats,” it confided, “tends to be a rather overrated activity. Might as well call a whirlwind.”
—from “Coraline,” by Neil Gaiman
Cat Man
He is kicking my seat back—not exactly kicking.
Stretching.
He asks his mother, “Where’s Cat Man?”
“There is no Cat Man,” she says. “Only Catwoman.”
The little boy stretches harder against my seat. “He’s like Spider-Man,”
he explains. “Spider-Man could shoot his web and snag the clouds and
drag us to Spokane.”
“That’s a long way from Austin,” his mother says. A long way to leave
her little boy with his father, then turn right around and fly home.
It was a whirlwind this morning, arriving for a 6 a.m. flight.
Cat Man, she wonders. Cat Man?
Call him all you want.
If he were on this plane he’d stretch
extend his claws
sweep at something only he could see
sense danger and turn away
nap until bedlam subsides.
