Just Another Day in Peekskill (as told by two cats who've seen it all—and still demand breakfast)

As lights danced across the sky over Peekskill, Peshwari and Daisy felt unmoored—no longer in Peekskill, no longer anywhere at all, except adrift in the land of light.

“Just another day in Peekskill, New York,” said Peshwari, the brown cat with eyes so red and weary they looked halfway to blindness. She was watching Daisy—the black-and-white one with lungs like a church bell—especially when the tall Black guy stepped outside with that look again. The one that said: "What are you cats doing, lounging around? Why aren’t you chasing mice off this lousy property?"

But he knew—deep down like regret on a Tuesday—that we couldn’t stand the sight of mice. Let alone chase the disgusting things through the grass and poison ivy where nothing’s visible and everything itches.

“What does that even mean?” asked Daisy, already sighing as the sentence deflated. Peekskill again. It always circled back to weather. It was the only thing bored cats and bored humans ever really talked about—humidity, heat indexes, and sudden gusts of what was that? She didn’t care. She just wanted shade and snacks.

“Well, we’ve got nearly everything,” said Peshwari, her tail flicking like a bored metronome. “Right here in this overgrown backyard. No one bothers us. The birds are heartbreakingly slow. And that boy—he feeds us. Morning. Afternoon. Sometimes mid-day if we do that thing where we sit like stone Buddhas by the door. No meowing. Just... presence. He thinks we’re mysterious. I think his heart’s too soft.”

“Of course not,” said Daisy. “He’s human. But not the other one.”

“Oh, that one. The short guy. Eyes like they’re always thinking sideways.”

“He’s what they call Puerto Rican.”

“Do you mind him?”

Daisy gave a shrug you could hear in the grass. “He’s not what any of us are really looking for.”

“What are we looking for?” Peshwari asked, eyes drifting shut, ears half-folded in the heat.

“A beach,” Daisy said, matter-of-factly. “That’s what Peekskill’s missing. We’ve got hills. Mountains. That dramatic river. But no beach. When it gets this hot, you need sand. You need breeze. You need a dead fish you didn’t ask for.”
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Peshwari nodded, dreaming sideways. “A dead fish and someone to blame it on.”

Peshwari and Daisy are ready for their next adventure, but for now, they're content to lounge around, patiently waiting for that boy to show up with a dinner dish.