The acrobat

Calin turned his gaze towards me. I had indeed been careful not to open the door noisily. But nothing escapes a cat, even from 10 meters away.

He recognized me, certainly, fixed his stare on me, seeming to say, "Go ahead, take your photo, I have something else to do." I didn't need to be asked twice, still imploring the Apple photo goddess that I might pull it off.

Calin immediately turned his attention away the moment I lowered my device. Something had caught his curiosity. He advanced without too much effort to stop again, waiting for another clue. A bird flew over his head. He pivoted acrobatically to follow it without losing his balance, then gave me another glance before continuing along the narrow fence ledge.

I sighed, I who have always had a slight fear of heights. Those who get dizzy in high places are said to lack confidence in themselves. Yet I am perceived as someone assured. It depends on where one decides to plant their certainties.

I remember my father also had vertigo. When the house was being built during my adolescence, I often saw him hesitate before climbing a ladder. If I also remember correctly, it was my mother who went to paint the roof eaves. But still. Dad ventured up there, into the heights.

My vertigo began later for me. I remember my stay in Lisbon, when I took the elevator to the top of a monument to observe the Tagus River. Or that time in Barcelona, at the top of the Sagrada Familia, half-built. A feeling akin to what it might be to live in proximity to death.

I am not a homebody for nothing. I am no acrobat, and the little height I have gained in my life resembles a hilly landscape of rounded and peaceful hillocks.

Now, almost every evening, I try to stand on one leg, then the other, to maintain a modicum of solidity in my skeleton. I am far from having the agility of cats. But I insist. It is something like how one attempts to eke out a few more years.

It is easier on my right leg. It must be said that the left leg never quite recovered from its break nearly 30 years ago. All of that seems so distant. I had fallen from my full height by slipping on black ice, one Christmas Eve evening.

Returning to Calin, the black cat, soft as a panther unaware of itself, he had just disappeared into the alley, much to the dismay of his owner, my downstairs neighbour, to whom I had just sent the photo.

The latter came out to call his cat, who naturally pretended not to hear him.

I returned to my home from the heights of my not very high or reassuring gallery. Before closing the door, I turned towards the trees. Squirrels were chasing each other, darting from branch to branch, like Tarzan or Spiderman.