This morning, I stepped out onto the porch to get some fresh air and discovered this. Honestly, at first, I was really scared.
For a long moment, the world shrank to that single spot on the porch. The bundle of fur looked almost alive, as if it might suddenly uncurl and stare back at me. I searched for a rise and fall of breath, a twitch, a sound—anything. There was nothing. Just the eerie stillness and the cold boards beneath my feet, holding this inexplicable, reddish shape like an accusation. When I finally understood what I was seeing, the fear didn’t vanish; it…