It’s slowly getting a bit warmer, the snow melts and everything is wet. Muckel is not amused. Last week while it was very cold he hardly went out to hunt mice and birds. He stayed in most of the time, but he was clearly in a bad mood.

Muckel belongs to our neighbours but since they are both away for work during the day, and I am at home in my office, pretending to work, he regularly comes to visit me in the morning and curls up in my lap for half an hour. When that gets too boring, he eventually goes out again.

I open the back door and let him out. We both listen without moving, Muckel sits on a dry spot under a chair, I stand at the door. We are alone. It is quiet, a far away plane hums, there are some birds trying to sing a spring song. There is a silence there that is much more than the absence of noise. It is palpable, there is the presence of silence.