Awkward Moment

Those cats were at it again wailing up a storm. I went out to the balcony to see a bunch of them on the strip of lawn between our house and the neighbor's doing a rugby scrum, their chunky short-tailed butts wriggling in one mass over the dark grass. As I watched I realized this was no scrum but a complex dance, with one cat at a time climbing into the middle as the others let out a wail until all of them had a turn and then it started over again. I'm not even sure if dance was the right word. This was something no humans would do, except maybe on an improv stage or in an old technicolor movie with a lot of singing and dancing. Watching them I felt an odd emotion rising within me, something elemental, and when one gray tabby took its place in the center I just had to cry out with them. At once the cats stopped and gazed up before dispersing and dashing separately into the darkness, leaving me to wonder what came over me.