A really strange thing happened during my run last night. I must have been a solid four kilometres from home, near some really budget tennis court in an otherwise posh part of town. I wasn't really paying attention to anything except for my breathing and the Black Keys.
Then I saw Pepe and my heart stopped.
I stopped dead in my tracks. My brain just couldn't compute the image. Same short, orange fur. Same blue collar with medallion. Same posture. Same walk. I could have even swore I saw him slightly limping. The music was still blaring in my ears and I wasn't sure what to do. I'm pretty sure my mouth was slightly open, trying to understand how my cat (no stranger to long strolls) had ended up this far. I've always imagined Pepe having a double life; getting double helpings of food and attention from some Bizarro Me two or three blocks down. Would explain how he could be gone for such long periods of time. But this was beyond my comprehension.
I started to follow him. I pictured myself never being able to catch him and losing him for good. I didn't notice that he was actually following a woman. I never noticed the woman. By the time I managed to get the volume on my iPhone down, the woman had let my cat into her front door, his tail stiff up in the air the entire time. I should have noticed the tail. Instead, there I was, standing on the side walk and staring at this woman with a confused look on my face. A case of mistaken identity. I felt I I had to say something in order to not look like some kind of strange stalker creep. So I just apologized and told her our cats looked identical. She seemed unwilling to delve any further into the matter.
So I laughed to myself and kept running. I even considered coming back around the block to take another look, but decided against it. I spend the rest of my run considering parallel universes.
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