Cat Eat Bird

I walk past a family of rank street cats every morning. Their fur is moppy, and, as you approach them, the cats cower, some retreating to the safety underneath the parked cars. The dirty gray matriarch with a reptilian half-tail, however, stands in defense and stares at you. Proud, exasperated, her gaze dares you to shoo her and her family away. I know that she continues to eye me down after I pass her. She's waiting for me to cross the street, the point of no-return.

They spend their days outside of a stinky fast food joint that serves the bored-to-death soldiers posted every ten-meters around the Ministry of Defense across the street. The stench of this place is a jumble of low quality bathroom cleaner, ruined lettuce, and wet bread. I hold my breath when I pass through the thick of it. Across the street, a giant, festive impressionist portrait of Hafez al Assad in a bling mirror frame hangs above the entrance to the Ministry of Defense.

Down the street, you hear the cooing of Arabic pop sensation, Fares Karam. The music is coming from the cellphone of the mustached soldier imprisoned in a booth outside of the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates, a 1970s austere concrete eyesore. Sometimes, he stands up to open the garage for the shiny black Jaguars. A few months ago, he planted a fake plastic flower with two "wet-drops" of wax on the petals in front of his booth. There is an opulent flower shop across the street; they sell real flowers. Today, I noticed his new yellow cockatiel. The bird cage hangs outside in the piercing desert cold. I wonder if he will bring the cage inside his booth tonight.