Now that Snack is getting older, he sometimes goes through the motions of running away when I'm trying to get him back inside, as if trying to save face in front of his former bad self. He's neither agile enough to run away like he once could, nor fiercly comfortable enough in his own fur to want to bother with the scrapes he might run into, left outside on his own for a while. But I'll always, as my own compromise, perhaps because I too am not as fierce as before, wish not to have the fuss of a real run, and give him some time, at least enough to leave his mark, as some legendary tomcat of old, with the scent mark of a ghost still putting the fear of Snack a few generations down the line.
He also scratches more bravely now, going at the chairs with me nearby, and not immediately leaping down, either out of slowness, or a statement, a plea
for leniency in his dotage. As if to say, after all these years of docility, let me
be a cat for my remaining few, when my body is least able to do the damage I once could. Just let me slip into my dotage and my happy hunting grounds a wild animal again.