Scanning the people sitting outside the café, he spotted a couple with matching mustaches take turns feeding a Pomeranian with a pink bow, a woman in enough outerwear she looked more at home on the tundra than Harbor City on a thirty-degree day like today, and a waitress in a cat-ear headband, telling a Doberman that looked like it might eat a small child that he was the most handsomest good boy in the whole dog park.

There wasn’t any lightning strike of recognition, no smack to the back of the head from the universe, and definitely no ah-ha moment. Instead, there were only a blustery late-November day and a handful of people and their dogs.

“Oh my God!” a woman screeched from behind him. “Sir Hiss! Stop!”

Nash felt the piercing jabs on his back a half second before their meaning sank in half as deep as the cat’s claws had. Then it was just straight-up shock as the cat climbed up Nash’s back, using its claws as spikes to pierce his coat and sink down to his skin. It didn’t stop until the feral animal was perched on top of his head like some kind of demon cat mountain climber. Nash didn’t move. He couldn’t. He could barely breathe without the cat sinking its claws deeper into his scalp. The excited, high-pitched yaps of two small dogs and the woman still calling out after “Sir Hiss” got closer. He would have turned, but any sudden movement seemed like the worst of all possible ideas.

On the inhale, he started to slowly raise his free hand to get ahold of the feline hissing from its unauthorized spot.

That’s exactly when disaster struck.

Suddenly, two black pugs were running circles around his shins, their leashes tightening with each turn, while the cat angrily yowled from the top of his head. The leashes forced his legs closer together like a wobbly tree trunk as the dogs bounced off of him, making it hard to stay upright. In an effort to keep his balance, he threw out his arms, being careful not to scare the cat into digging deeper with its claws or sending coffee spilling out of his cup and onto the dogs.

From the top of his head, the cat let out a series of angry hisses, slashing at the air with one paw, claws extended.

“Sir Hiss. No!” The woman on the other end of the dogs’ extended leashes rushed closer with every doggie rotation, her full, round cheeks pink from the chilly breeze. She yelled out, “I’m so sorry, I—Groucho Barks! Mary Puppins! Leave it!”