This was the week every year when the snapping turtles returned, and the neighbour boy was preparing for it. He laid out careful patterns of rocks and stones in elaborate geometries, here and there stashing bits of lettuce and other vegetables among his seemingly random mineral ley lines. The confusion of columns and divisions gradually became more coherent as they gained complexity; the whole hinted at some mysterious intent known by him alone, and then perhaps only vaguely, an uncommon genius the boy did not seem capable of communicating.

This behavior was not out of the ordinary. I’d once witnessed him methodically trace with chalk every crack and line in the cement sidewalk leading to his front door, and more than once in the fall I would return home to find him still on his front step counting the leaves as they fell from a particular tree, adding to the total he’d begun enumerating that morning. I had no idea what sort of activity progressed inside the house, but I would not expect much different.

When I related my observations to Dr Ehman, he didn’t immediately respond. This also was not out of the ordinary. Our conversations tend to be economical, more comfortable silence than wasted words. I think that’s why I like him. What he likes in me I could not say… though given my own disinterest in engaging with the townsfolk at large, perhaps we have more in common than a taste for the back wall tables at the Crow’s Hand tavern. It’s one of many things we never discuss in our quiet meetings here, content instead to enjoy each other’s warmly reticent company. Our time is a high point for both of us, I’m certain. I know I look forward to it, and though I don’t drink, for the sake of ceremony I order a ginger ale that sits untouched on the table while he imbibes.

He swallowed back a gulp of the brown ale in front of him and finally mentioned a similar behavior of my own.

I knew what he referred to — a minor habit I sometimes demonstrate for turning in a circle when I first see the moon. It’s a harmless impulse I’m aware of, though no less puzzling for it. Of course, the thought had occurred to me that this small thing signified a greater invisible sea of compulsions, and so in the interest of self-awareness I sought for them. For a span of perhaps weeks I fastidiously considered my actions and activities, on the watch for shapes and designs that might point in the direction of internal schism. None ever showed themselves. My kitchen and toilet activities appeared normal to a banal degree. I recorded the sounds of my sleep and pored through the tapes without discovering anything of concern. Toward my cat, or rather the cat who comes and goes and seems to sometimes live here, I detected little more than an even co-existence with barely an acknowledgment of the other.

Besides, Dr Ehman is a veterinarian. I questioned his bona fides, curious if he could prove himself qualified to examine me to judgment as a marginal lunatic. He assured me I was no crazier than the horse he recently performed a sinoscopy on. When I pressed him on just how crazy that horse was, he laughed and we were quiet a bit. The Crow’s Hand was never busier than tonight, with some two score patrons gathered together in little colonies of two, three and four. Fibber the bartender leaned behind the counter leafing through a worn romance novel while the eye-patched waitress Line circulated the room in her lazy amble. Had I enough interest in the people I might learn the story behind her eye. Sometimes I can’t even remember why I came to this town.

Dr Ehman motioned to her for a refill and drained his glass. “Besides”, he said, “how do you know I’m not your imaginary friend?”

It was a joke, and not a bad one, but it still gave me a tiny sting as if I didn’t want to accept the possibility of its truth. But that didn’t hold water: there was too much evidence. For one, everyone who needed to know seemed to be fully aware of his vet office’s location and hours. He told me once he had even treated the cat who sometimes lives at my house. And besides, I could remember numerous direct interactions between him and the outside world, at least one with sharp acuity. It was a rare busier night here at the Crow’s Hand and Line was occupied with big groups on the other side of the room. She wasn’t getting to Dr Ehman’s refill quick enough so he went to the bar himself and ordered directly from Fibber, exchanging a few words and money to hand.

“How do you know you’re not mine?” I retorted. He guffawed and slapped the table.

Etc etc. I suppose it would come to light that the narrator actually is Dr Ehman’s imaginary friend, and he’d be left wondering whose cat that is.