Today's story is “Kypris’ Kiss”, which was originally published in  Roar Volume 8 by Slip-Wolf, whom you can find on Twitter @Slip_Wolf

He is slowly plinking away at his first novel right now, a Chicago gangland horror set during prohibition a century before this one. His short fiction can can be found with SofaWolf Press, Furplanet, Rabbit Valley and Weasel Press.

Read for you by Khaki, your faithful fireside companion.

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You’re listening to The Voice of Dog.

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I’m Khaki, your faithful fireside companion,

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and today’s story is

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“Kypris’ Kiss”, which was originally published in Roar Volume 8 by Slip-Wolf,

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whom you can find on Twitter @Slip_Wolf

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He is slowly plinking away at his first novel right now,

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a Chicago gangland horror set during prohibition a

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century before this one.

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His short fiction can can be found with SofaWolf Press,

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Furplanet, Rabbit Valley

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and Weasel Press.

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“Kypris’ Kiss”

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by Slip-Wolf I’m in a small part of heaven.

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My delicate feline nose picks apart what my eyes already feast on;

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inside the glinting glass hull of the French press,

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the coil-rimmed filter,

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carrying grounds from the toasted gold above,

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descends. A caramel head of froth crowns the results.

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I pick up the press by its warm stem,

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pour with care so no drops escape the bone-white mug

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with its silver-leaf logo reading Kypris on its flank.

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Steam rises as I set the press down

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and stir the cream upward.

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I delay the moment with bated breath,

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then another. In heaven

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there’s no need but I do this because savoring is no less wondrous than having.

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Then a Moroccan kiss touches my lips

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and passes on. I love this place.

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I savor my solitude

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amongst kindred but separate souls

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and feel the sands of time settle

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as they always do here.

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This is a small part

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of heaven. A Madeline cake would be wonderful right now.

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My loving coffee shop dotes on me,

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the sea-shell confectionary on my plate

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spongey and fragrant as my coffee.

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Crossing lanes beneath my nose

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I can move from baked sweetness

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to off-bitter bite.

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The coffee is exquisite.

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“I love this place.”

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I say to the shop.

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“I love you.” Is there sugary perfume on the napkin that I dab at my lips?

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I finish the next page in my book

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and set it down. It will be here when I return through the red door frame

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onto these ebony,

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ivory tiles. Everything is where you leave it here.

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I wander the streets,

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my shoes scuffing the cobbles under a perfect dusk.

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Home is an apartment that is a cloud that is a cradle in the sky,

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glass walls that see for infinity

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in every direction.

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Slumber finds me if I want it,

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but mostly I get to meditate

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on all the others milling below on their way to and from

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whatever enclaves of heaven wait for them.

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A movie house, a painted cave,

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a parlour of flattering mirrors,

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a lush lick of wild jungle.

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There’s a slice of heaven carved out for everyone.

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Nap time. I was somewhere else once.

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The end was irrelevant, as the beginning of what came next was enrapturing.

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The blue sky became a pale iris,

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the pink dusk a rose garden under clouds.

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I don’t remember the cat I was before I came.

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To do so would, I suppose,

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recall some pain or shortcoming.

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I danced from cradle to rest,

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bright in my moment,

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hopeful for the next day,

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but alone. I remember that much.

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A solitary creature,

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my happiness or lack of it was in books

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and tuna and grooming. I think.

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These are all inseparable parts of me in some way.

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I don’t remember what I toiled at

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or what reason I had for doing so.

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I could have walked or I could have loped on all fours.

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I don’t remember that either.

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Did I wear these clothes?

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These off-whites and

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meditative greys?

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My fur is the same color

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so maybe this is an extension of me.

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I’m lithely naked whenever I feel like grooming,

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clothed again when I follow certain paths,

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seeking the perfect flower to adorn my breast pocket as a corsage.

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Whatever I need to be to be happy,

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I am, as I suppose I was where I came from.

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And what I am now,

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as I’m sure I was then,

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is alone. I pass a braided coyote on the way into the coffee shop,

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tail swaying, teeth shining above a caftan that looks like a Navajo sand-painting

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unfinished with itself,

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winding in an unfelt wind.

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Her claws click on the polished tile

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as she passes me with kind eyes

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and leaves through the same red door frame

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through which I enter.

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A rabbit, a lion, a dolphin,

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a horse. In duos or trios they occupy their spaces inside the café.

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My space waits for me,

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single chair drawn back,

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book open face down.

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The press and mug wait empty.

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When I sit, they are ready.

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My coffee shop has ticked the seconds off till I return.

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The press descends and the pour is perfect.

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How well Kypris café knows me.

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I sit; I read my Proust.

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Laughter and talk around me is musical as a brook.

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There are no distractions in heaven,

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well, none that aren’t welcome.

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The draperies framing the window behind me brush my back

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and cool air breathes a caress into my shoulder,

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like the coffee shop’s very soul

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is teasing me in affection.

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“I love this place,”

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I repeat behind closed eyelids,

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and then, to the walls and windows and tiles and brass and wood collectively,

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“I love you.” It feels good to say that,

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to acknowledge how much a part of me this place is,

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this oasis of calm in eternity,

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this space of repose and rejuvenation.

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This must have been an important part of what came before,

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wherever that was.

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It doesn’t matter.

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Coffee replenishes.

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The currents of surrounding chatter

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wind round one engaging topic after another.

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I stay alone. Then I leave.

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My return to the cloudy domicile this time is naked,

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slinking and leaping from high rooftop to rooftop.

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The ghosts of caffeine have my tail in the air the whole way.

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Slumber finds me in perfect peace once again.

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Next day the coyote is back,

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this time in a black kimono,

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white paint stark against the red on her toothy lips,

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black lining her wise eyes.

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She gazes at me for some time as I seat myself,

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book and press at ready.

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There is an empire cookie on the plate,

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tart and sweet, icing like a wink.

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My mind is absconded by the words on the page,

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but only momentarily.

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I realize the coyote is talking to me.

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“What?” It’s been some time since my voice was used with another here.

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I squeak, mouse-like.

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“I’m saying your proposal has been accepted,”

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the coyote says in the manner of congratulations.

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I fidget a moment, having lost my place on the page.

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I look over the black nose on that painted white muzzle and cock my head.

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“I’m not sure what you mean.”

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“Of course you understand.

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We all have someone for us here,

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someone who shares us, completes us.

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You found yours,” the coyote said

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as though pointing out the obvious.

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I know of course of the trickster dispositions of coyotes,

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of the way they wind you in wiles.

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She’s having fun at my expense, obviously.

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"I don’t know what you’re speaking of,”

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I mutter, ears swivelling in confusion.

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“Always alone,” the coyote says. “Or so it seemed.”

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“I like the freedom solitude affords,”

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I answer honestly

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and she clicks her long tongue.

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“But you love,” the coyote grins.

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“Just like the rest of us.

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Love brought you here again and again.

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And that love was accepted.

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Now it is done.” “What is done?

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I’ve accepted nothing.”

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The coyote rises gracefully

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and begins to glide to the door.

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“Everything is where you leave it here,

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especially your affection.”

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I wrinkle my nose.

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The other mammals in here regard one another over the waft of java’s team,

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paying us no mind.

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She lowers a paw to my shoulder

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and the bracelets chase each other to her wrist like an abacus adding the universe up.

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“You and Kypris are married now.”

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“What?” “I will leave you alone.”

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The coyote does, sashaying out the door frame

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which shines its crimson shine.

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I am left with my coffee and my questions.

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My coffee wafts strong.

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The sun is warm on my shoulder.

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The drawn drapes tickle my neck.

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Soon enough I’m home.

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I don’t have to sleep.

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So I don’t, unthinking.

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Next day I hurry back,

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and linger in the open doorway of my coffee shop.

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The coyote is there again, dressed in a blue cloche and a flapper dress.

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She smokes her cigarette through a lacquered stem and stares off into space.

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So I settle in my seat,

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resume my book and sip my coffee.

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There is a sense of peculiarity in the air, as though I’m missing something important.

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The white frosted cake is

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exquisite, soon gone to the last spongey crumb.

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I read my novel as it spools the woe of a love unrequited,

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and I wonder with amusement at the needs of creatures

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to find affection for themselves in others.

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Such a strange predilection to thrive in such a way.

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Whatever wants I was once slave to,

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such was not it.

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Chimes sing above the distant cash register which itself

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rests un-manned and has never rang once in all my time here.

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The chimes are either in agreement or chiding me.

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I know this is for me alone.

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I am the only creature who listens

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and I laugh when I remember yesterday.

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“Can you imagine being married to anyone?”

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I ask nobody in particular.

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I sip my coffee again

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and something brushes my lips.

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I look into my cup

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and see a small fragment of something floating in there.

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By the glint of icing sugar

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I can see its more cake. I feel

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the coyote at my side

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even though she casts no shadow.

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“Happiness where you least expect it,”

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she laughs. “There are still surprises,

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even here.” My ears swivel.

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“What surprises?” “I told you.

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You are married. You and Kypris.

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This is the first day of a honeymoon that may never end.”

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I could laugh, but I can’t.

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I could sputter, but the sweetest caffeine ambrosia in heaven isn’t for the most startled throat to choke on.

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“You can’t be serious.”

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“You found its kami.

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It found your heart.

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That was enough.” “I can’t love a coffee shop enough to marry one.”

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“Have you never loved a place before?”

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“Before here?” I frown.

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It’s a strange feeling to frown,

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no less than feeling confused.

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“I don’t remember exactly who I loved.”

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“Who. So you believe that true affectionate love is only granted between people like us?”

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The coyote is even more amused now

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as she sits across my small table from me in the space that up until a moment ago

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needed no chair nor had one.

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“I don’t know,” I say,

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feeling consternation that has become alien to me.

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“I never thought of love that way at all.

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This place is important to me.”

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“And you love it for that reason.

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I’ve heard you say it.

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So did Kypris. What’s to deny?

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Love brought you here. Love keeps you here. It always does.

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I’ve got to go.” The coyote rises.

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“Who are you?” Different feelings are pulling me from different directions,

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and everything feels a mess.

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My throat is dry and the dark potion awaits, but it has become suspect.

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“Did I know you before?”

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She doesn’t meet my gaze.

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“Everyone knows someone like me from before. It’s not important.”

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She puts her paw on the red door frame as she passes through,

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patting affectionately

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as though on the shoulder of a friend.

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“I’ll leave you two.”

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“Where are you going?”

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“To play billiards. Or roll in a meadow. There’s quite a few options.”

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And she is off. I frown into my coffee,

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which hasn’t cooled from the way I like it one bit.

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Reading my books and drinking my ever-filling mug.

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Nothing about it needs to be personal.

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My solitude, in and of itself,

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is the whole point.

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More white cake has appeared,

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this time with a tiny frosting rosette in red.

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I regard it for a while before I go back to my book,

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reading more about a man who sought love where it was not to be found and failed to learn.

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Fools are so much more interesting to read about than the wise.

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No interesting surprises ever befall them, do they?

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I’m having trouble paying attention to the book in front of me,

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glancing back to the rose-bejeweled cake and back.

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I’m not hungry. When I leave through the red door,

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I leave it behind next to my book.

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I wander alleys back,

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tail twitching. Night passes,

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then a day and I lay in my cloud, thinking on the details of my coffee shop.

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It wasn’t made for me.

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Too many others share the space for it to be just mine.

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They are as real as I am; I know it.

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Life has a gravity,

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a warmth that you can sense.

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None of us here are shades of a life, but the purest essence.

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All Kypris café’s other patrons

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are paired, or trioed,

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or collected in larger groups.

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Is that why the shop has given its love to me, the solitary visitor?

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Or are there others who share it?

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I don’t recall there ever being love like this in what came before this place.

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Is it good that I don’t remember?

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Perhaps it is all a lie.

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Perhaps the coyote has spread this to others

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and there are several of us,

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each assuming Kypris café has given its love to us and us alone.

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What a trick that would be.

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But the whole idea is senseless,

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making fools of so many people.

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Just me then. I am seeing a half truth,

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tying myself in needless knots.

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It makes no sense for paradise to allow such a thing.

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The next day, I am unable to focus on my book at all.

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I look up and study all of Kypris' furnishings and decorations collectively and separately,

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all organs of a whole.

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The shop has the aged appearance of something musty

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and lived in, but conversely spotless

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and highlighted with bright spots.

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Stained-glass chandeliers,

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brass fittings and wood panels,

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and here and there frames of red,

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highlighted by the prominent hot-red door frame in which the French-glassed oak door rests,

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eternally hinged inwards.

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There is no sense of a closing time.

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I would imagine there are nocturnal souls who visit when heaven’s lights are low

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and licks of sodium and neon create beckoning beacons all up and down this street.

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So strange that I am so rarely nocturnal,

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and never here. But then I remember;

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I can’t read clearly at night.

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Nor can I now. I’m barely another paragraph ahead in my book before I’m drawn up anew by some crackling of presence around me,

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not just in occupied, warmed chairs all around me filled by cheerful bodies,

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but in the empty corners,

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the details of my world drunk in

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and absorbed and taken for granted.

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The treat today is an almond croissant.

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I take a few bites that tingle my senses, but something doesn’t feel right.

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There’s a cloying sense of deliberation in the air around me.

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I’m being crowded with sightless intent,

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doted on by dextrous hands unseen.

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I’m being smothered by an attention that is at once invisible

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and ever present.

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I close my book

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and leave feeling uneasy,

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but break from tradition.

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The croissant receives only a few bites,

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but the book comes with me.

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There’s a distinct cold stirring in my wake as I leave,

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no words spoken to myself,

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the other patrons, or anyone in particular.

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I’m home soon enough, on my cloud,

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book open but too tired to read now.

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Slumber gauzes the eyes and the senses

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and another day has passed.

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The next begins with trepidation.

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My book is under my arm,

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poking at a lilac corsage I’ve picked along a garden path,

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and as the red portal of Kypris café appears,

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the well-worn fragrance of ground coffee bean and spongey, desert decadence entice me in.

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But the uncertainty is still there,

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that feeling of disturbance deep within.

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Entering suddenly entails more than I can comfortably fathom.

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I move on, avoiding the wet shimmer on the window panes as my passing reflection

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ripples across them

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and out of sight.

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Out in the endless light

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I walk the thoroughfare of heaven,

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into the throng of other souls in joy and repose,

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passing other waystations of their amusement.

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Jazz and toasted tobacco smoke

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rolls out of a club with doors wide

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and no lineup and a snap in my step that urges me to smooth down my lapels.

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A bakery tickles my whiskers with scents that dab my tongue with marzipan

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and sugar icing, and I see cakes filling a frosted window

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that stands the fur on my shoulders on end,

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countless exotic offerings sampled by gourmands

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of every species.

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All the while the disturbed goods bake themselves back into replenishment

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with fragrant splendor on their azure cornflower pedestals.

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I sidle up to the open door,

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as all doors in heaven necessarily are,

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and rub my narrow flank along it to gather a bit of its scent.

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Then, perfumed in sweetness,

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I’m up a drain-pipe and sneaking past a soft-shoe dance chorus of multiple mammalian species

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of matched grace

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at a rooftop garden party,

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stopping momentarily to drown my confusion

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in a sip of sweet bubbly from a champagne pyramid

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at the shindig’s edge.

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Soon I leap back to heaven’s side-walked earth

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and come face to face

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with another open door on an open portico and familiar signs with universal symbols.

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A ring-handled cup on a saucer

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lets off steam in rough gold-leaf filigree.

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The sign above the door says, rather tacitly,

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Angel’s Gin and Java.

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I check and see that the book I’d lost track of during my flight from Kypris

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is still under my arm,

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a part of me in that strange alchemy of paradise,

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but still something to be set down.

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I enter the coffee shop,

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smell unfamiliar smells,

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and take a seat at an empty booth near a window.

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The vibe in here is wholly unfamiliar,

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not welcome, nor exclusionary.

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Wallpaper and tryptychs of pastoral landscapes

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with hedge-leaping horses

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and parasol bearing foxes

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glint in oily light.

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The clientele is thick,

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but isolated and among the teapots and mugs

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I see sporadic beer pints and highballers, along with a martini-glass borne by a lizard

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who sips away in an opiate torpor.

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The coffees are spiked by liqueurs and the teas are paired with mustily strong edibles that overwhelmingly stain the air.

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I find a seat and take it,

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reading my book. Nothing manifests at first as I read,

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then finally I look up

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and see a coffee.

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Angel's has seen me at least,

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and read my simplest of desire.

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I sip. The coffee isn’t bad, I don’t think,

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a bit over-sweetened.

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I settle in against the plush cushions,

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which are soft and lose myself in the sensation

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of welcome solitude.

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No mis-requited love from a place that holds any power over me,

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nor uncertainty at its proximity.

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I can get my bearings again in this place,

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just another building in paradise’s endless playground.

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No bizarre shade of needy affection chases me.

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The light is just bright enough to see,

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then just enough to read comfortably.

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Stupid coyote. Feed me a line and think I can’t get away from your manipulations,

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or the manipulations of whatever tried to hold me to Kypris café.

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In paradise we are bound by nothing,

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our memories sifted

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for the most fleeting joys, made eternal as

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we desire. This cat

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walks eternity in the grasp

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of no love that can bind it.

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The very idea is treason to all I am.

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My dues to mortality are paid.

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I demand little of the universe

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and it demands nothing of me.

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What an absurd imposition of my identity the whole idea is;

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that one can love any place

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in the mannerr of another soul.

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Especially when you don’t want another one.

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It’s hard to concentrate on my book, with its lost subject scattered into the machinations of others' desires and repulsions.

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Such a reminder of the world I must have left behind in these pages,

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such a warning as to the follies that could have beset me

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had my heart lay unguarded.

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Now, having nearly succumbed again,

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I’ve proven with a simple traipse down heaven’s artery

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that I will never be tied down by the ensorcellment of any bosom

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of flesh or wood.

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I’ve gotten bored;

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I’ve stepped out.

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Commitment isn’t for me, sweetie.

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The décor in my peripheral sight appears slightly lurid

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in a way I like. My coffee spills.

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On its way to my lips I lose my grip on the mug stem

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and coffee that isn’t quite scalding but not cool either splashes onto my chest and lap.

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My clothes, for I need clothes in this moment,

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absorb the spill and its halo of drops.

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Well damn. I sit there in my booth,

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drops of coffee all over my front,

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spread across my lap and sprinkled on the underside of my muzzle.

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A moment passes, then a second,

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and the café-bar carries on as normal,

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none of the other raucous creatures noticing my clumsiness.

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I blink. The spill cleans itself up from the table and floor.

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But not from me. I’m wet and dripping.

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Even my book has been dabbed in liquid,

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the page bubbling up under the spots of moisture.

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Well why not? If what I read is a part of me and not of this place,

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it wouldn’t stay intact.

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One never has to change clothes or fur or skin in paradise, for all that affects what we are

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is with consent and as desired.

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Like the gravity of other places,

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this is a rule universally known

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and everywhere unspoken.

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I can’t think of why I would desire a soaking.

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Even a cool rain here is just

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neutrinos of tingling refreshment

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that fades with sensation.

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Most often it is the lullaby of thunder beyond Kypris' window

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while I— No. I won’t ponder her here.

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I escaped that place for a reason,

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namely the absence of reason

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brought on by the coyote,

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the trickster. My hackles,

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wet and dry rise and fall.

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She sowed the discord that chased me away.

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I decide I hate her.

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I am still dripping with coffee and uncomfortable,

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so I rise and head deeper into Angel’s.

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I know what a restroom is though I don’t recall needing more than a mirror in one for all my time here.

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I gaze in the mirror,

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willing the dark stain to dry

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and recede into memory, but it doesn’t happen.

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The thick scents that permeate this whole place

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have become a miasma,

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a low hanging smoke

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like cloudy dread.

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One should not feel this sensation in heaven.

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I wrinkle my nose at the stale headiness of it

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and realize I need to clean myself.

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I run water under the tap,

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and from icy cold the water turns to scalding hot.

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I draw my paw back from the torrent with a yowl

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and feel the sting throb and then subside.

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A bang takes me off my feet as a stall opens

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and a goat shuffles out,

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horns crooked, sniffing,

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foul smoke curling from a mouth without a cigarette.

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“You don’t know why you’re here either,”

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he wheezes and holds up an open pack of what looks like tobacco-stuffed finger-bones.

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“May as well light up and stay awhile.

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Maybe longer.” My whiskers twitch as my gaze falls to the pack in his bony hand.

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The bones in the pack are moving,

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whispering things I can’t quite hear.

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“No. We have to go.”

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A paw wraps round my elbow

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and squeezes my forearm.

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The coyote narrows her yellow gaze at the goat,

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leads me away as the ragged figure backs into the dark of the stall

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and seals the portal with a click.

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I frown as I’m led back to the door, close to the mirrors,

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far from the other stalls,

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most open and innocuous.

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The coyote answers my unasked question,

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the filigree on her golden sari catching gaslight.

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“Wherever you lose yourself, you’ll find one like him.

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Yes, even here. Keep walking.”

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In a moment, we’re back in the café proper,

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my sense of unease still present if subsided.

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My book is still on the table where I spilled the coffee,

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still bubbled on the open page.

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But I myself am dry now, just like that.

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I return to the table and the coyote comes with me,

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takes an uninvited seat.

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I’d bristle, but I’m not sure if I should be grateful or not.

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“You followed me,” I say sourly.

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“I was going to ask if you followed me,”

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the coyote says. “We don’t all have one place here that’s chosen us.

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Some move around.”

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“Places don’t choose us.”

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I fold my arms in defiance

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and glance longingly down at the wrinkled page of my book.

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Will it be eternally maimed in the part where Swann laments his time wasted with Odette?

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I am thankful the story has so many separate, pristine volumes.

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Had this happened to Tolstoy’s War and Peace,

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I would probably weep.

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“There are places where we’re comfortable.

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That’s what I want.

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Comfort and solitude.”

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“And what makes you comfortable?”

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The coyote’s paws grasp mine,

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the shock of warmth on my paws sending a shudder through me

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as thumbs wrap over my palm.

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Direct contact has eluded me for so long.

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Who in heaven even desires such fleshy, foolish things?

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“The quiet. The solitude.”

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“You can have that anywhere.

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Go deeper. Details, please.”

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Her golden eyes look up from her bowed head,

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ears wide and receptive.

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“Please.” “I love the simple décor.

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Much nicer than this place.”

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A badger knocking back a pint at the bar

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gives me a glare over his shoulder,

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more pitying than annoyed.

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I ignore him. “I like the way the sun dapples on the tables through the French glass in the transoms.

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I love the simple elegance of the cloth-covered tables

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and wicker-backed chairs.

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I love the coffee,

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the confectionaries,

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the way the place always knows what my mood wants before even I do.”

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I think back to the rose-encrusted cake.

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“Well, most of the time anyway.”

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In a corner two wolves call out a cheer in a language I don’t recognize

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and slam their pints together hard enough that one breaks and sloshes suds.

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The one with his back to me has a battle-ax affixed to his back

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and is nearly naked.

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I think I’m glad they didn’t hear me putting this place down.

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“Valhalla isn’t the same for everybody,”

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the coyote says, following my gaze with a shrug before looking back.

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“It sounds like you love Kypris café.

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So why are you here instead of there?”

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I don’t quite know why, so it takes some time to collect myself.

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“Marriage, I mean, whatever game you were playing in there,

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I didn’t appreciate it.”

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The coyote turns her head sideways.

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“What game? You’re attached to that place, more than any other here.

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The café is attached to you,

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more than any other patron.

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What about the profession of love disturbed you?”

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“Besides it not being possible?”

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I want another coffee

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and I have one, black as night

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and bitter when I steal a sip.

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This place doesn’t know me, but that’s just fine.

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Maybe it takes a while.

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“Kypris is a coffee shop, a place, an inanimate space.”

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“No, it’s not.” The coyote wants to frown,

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I can tell, but smiles with a patience I find unnerving instead.

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“Here everything has a spirit,

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a force, an emotional agency.

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A place called Japan called it kami,

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while far North in the colder climes of the world before,

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Araniit, the breath of all things, affected people’s lives.

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We all came to know the world we exist in now in different ways,

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just bits of truth, gleaned or guessed while we were still wandering around wherever we were before this.

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Much of this is a surprise,

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and that’s part of the fun when you think about it.

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I mean why would you want to move onto a world where you already know everything, right?”

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I don’t know what to say to that.

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The coyote’s tail wags as she waits for me to agree,

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then slows and rests out of sight.

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“You don’t have to understand everything to enjoy paradise.”

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“I want to enjoy it by myself.

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It’s just how I am.

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Is that bad? I don’t love a coffee shop.”

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The coyote swallows,

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and her enthusiasm slackens

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as though coming to accept what I’m saying.

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“You don’t have to love Kypris back, not in that way.

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But we all love something, if not someone, in some way.

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We couldn’t live otherwise.

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You could love a mountain top,

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or a wind-swept plain

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or a subway stop.

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The only difference is that here,

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it can love you back.”

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The coyote shifts in her chair.

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“Here, everything and everyone

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can love you back.”

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I look into my coffee,

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take a sip. It’s still bitter

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and I miss the coffee at Kypris.

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Dammit. “So what do you do with four walls and tables and chairs that love you?

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I mean…this whole thing feels absurd.”

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The coyote laughs

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and I sense that its slightly painful.

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“You consummate that love with your presence.

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That’s all it requires.

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Understand, cat, everyone is given the gift of knowing,

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even if just once,

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what their heart really wants.”

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“But it isn’t real.”

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I think of the tickle of the drapes,

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the unceasing warmth of the sun through her windows,

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the perfected sensation of every bite

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and every sip in those walls.

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“I don’t know what love is, but I know this isn’t it.”

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“You don’t have to know,”

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the coyote chides with a smile.

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“Love is confusion, and yearning,

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and often unrequited.

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Your mistake is to assume

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it is somehow weaker for all that.

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Giving it with no expectation of its return is where its strongest.”

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She stops and takes a breath,

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then sips from a cool glass that has manifested in her paw.

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Maybe it’s gin and tonic, maybe it's

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water. I don’t ask.

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She stares into her glass for a moment.

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“Kypris loves you even if you decide to avoid her

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and never see her again.

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Her kami, like all spirits,

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is for you and you are for her.

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You only need acknowledge that whether in an oasis, or a café,

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or in another’s arms,

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you find love for something,

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if not someone…” The coyote stops

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and sets down her glass.

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“…outside yourself.”

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She turns away and scans the crowd of souls congregating in the Angel pub,

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together, apart, content.

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As she turns back to me,

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her fidgeting stops for her to wipe a tear away.

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“Just let it happen.

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You already have.”

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“Who are you?” The coyote lets boisterous celebration and laughter from all corners drift into our small realm of quiet.

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She holds her muzzle straight

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and dries her last tear away.

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“You don’t know me. You never did.

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I’m just someone who sees what is.

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No tricks. I was never one for tricks.”

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I curl my tail around myself,

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and sigh, my dry chest fur rising and falling as I lean back.

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The coffee isn’t working.

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Something is missing.

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I stare down at the dried book,

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pages wavy and rippled from water damage,

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willing order to return to them.

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This is what paradise is supposed to be,

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the order that follows the messy chaos of the outside,

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the preamble, the intro.

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Doubts shouldn’t torture anyone here and it’s for that reason that so much is swept from memory,

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consigned to insignificance.

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Loneliness never plagued this cat.

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So what plagues me now?

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I look up at the stuccoed ceiling past the slow turning, brass-plated fan,

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and with just a slight change in focus that alters perception,

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even past that barrier

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through to the blue eggshell skin that surrounds the vast heart’s locket of this heaven

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for all of us. Focus again,

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and then one can see past it

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into the nameless dark.

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Love put me here,

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safe from oblivion,

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and the very same found my tiny crèche in heaven,

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my place of comfort.

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What else would possibly take the one thing that mattered most to me in the mortal coil

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and put it here for my enjoyment,

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as part of my sense of self as the tail raised behind me

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or the whiskers that sample every wondrous sense ahead.

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“I’m a fool,” I say glumly.

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The coyote’s soft paw rests upon mine again.

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“We all are. It’s our most endearing quality, don’t you think?”

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“I didn’t ask your name,”

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I realize as I rise.

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“No you didn’t,” she says as she gets up with me,

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adjusting her sari.

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“It’s Cloud. Walk back with me, will you?”

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I nod, not needing to ask where.

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My walking stick clicks the cobbles

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and I tilt the bowler I’ve adopted above my pinstriped suit.

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Her sari has given way to a satin gown

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that follows curves from sinewed limb

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to cobbled ground.

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In another life, under other circumstances,

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I’d want to see how her hips sway.

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Here and now, I appreciate the warmth of her paw

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and feel the giddiness of her lively heart

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as we stop at Kypris' red arch

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and part ways with respectful bows.

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Cloud’s parting is silent, but reluctant.

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The coyote fades into the crowd of another cross-thoroughfare of heaven

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and I rifle the rippled pages of my book

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as I feel the electric charge of my café,

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welcoming me in. I can’t remember if I was gone hours or millennia.

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As Cloud said, it doesn’t matter.

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The cake waiting for me next to my French press

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is the most delightful,

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airy slice of culinary sugary joy I think I’ve ever sampled.

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The coffee is a lively melange of Moroccan warmth and spice.

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I know now I can go anywhere,

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but my joy will reside right here.

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It may be that to be happy,

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even in heaven one mustn’t fully know the self,

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why we’re at peace with the people or things we were close to or apart from.

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Love is the most confusing element of any life.

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I’ll never fully pierce the fog of the world before this one,

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where joys and pains brought me to struggle

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as we all did in some way.

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I’ll never seek out the reasons for my self-proscribed solitude,

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never deeply wonder if doubts were insects in my stomach.

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The faces that occasionally flash before my mind’s eye with

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dips of madeleine cake or sips of coffee

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or glimpses of dusk along heaven’s distant edge

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will never resolve back to knowledge of family or acquaintance,

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friend or foe. And I’ll never turn and see the coyote who called herself Cloud,

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decked just once, fleetingly,

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in a smudged coffee shop owners apron

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with the Kypris silver-leafed logo,

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looking longingly and lovingly

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across the sea of content regular patron souls,

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picking mine out of the throng

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as she had countless times before in a world all but forgotten.

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She’ll ache once more

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with curiosity and affection

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and a love of the kind that even when fate leaves it unrequited,

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fills us, grows within us

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and creates a place in paradise for us all.

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This was “Kypriss’ Kiss”

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by Slip-Wolf, read for you by Khaki,

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your faithful fireside companion.

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Thank you for listening

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to The Voice of Dog