Hot Under the Collar

Woman outside the Pawnshop toward Onan Road here on the weekend. A casual glance made one stop a few paces ahead after she had been passed. Busy couple of days running out to the dock at Pasir Panjung meeting a relative on a short stopover, not really any time to linger.... The woman had been forgotten and returned again to mind waking early Tuesday morning, retrieved of herself from the dust-pile of disused matter from the days.
        Bent almost double just beside the doorway of the shop; husband had kept upright. A soft cooing might have drawn initial notice, audible even over the traffic. Middle-aged Chinese, English-speaking with the gentling she was giving a ginger tab there just beside the doorstep. In order to leave passage along the pathway the woman had turned against the wall. Certainly it has been proved over all this time that the ginger cat in particular draws a stronger response from the people here; the women and children fan base. Specifically, the unremarkable pale or reddish common ginger. Is it some kind of unaccountable psycho-colonial throwback of an odd and twisted kind?
         Hot  morning, at the eateries clustering around the pillars where the fans were mounted. Crowded walkway, the pop-up hand-cream table out and the Indon maids thronging.
         Husband had merely lent forward a little and something in his tone and posture suggesting he was delicately attempting to draw his wife up and away.
         The woman was patting the cat. Usual thing. She could not keep one at home for whatever reason. (This was a good, amenable fellow, the husband, merely firm on this single point.) Out in the field the love flowed unrestrained; poured a bit indeed. Patting was one thing, nothing remarkable. But in this instance the woman was stroking, patting and wiping beneath the chin and along the side of the neck with a tissue in her hand. It seemed to be a Wet One, wet tissue, one of the larger, bonus size it appeared in her hand. Doubtful that the moisture had come from the mopping of the cat. Hot as it was—and the woman's action showed her intent—the coat of the cat could not have given off that much moisture.
         Poor ting. Feels the heat so bad, how can it not? (Huskies and Alsatians were sometimes kept here even in condos.) She could comfort it if nothing else. Like the human traffic often, the poor Sweet must have stopped beside the doorway of the shop to collect some of the cool from the aircon within. It had likely been chased out from the shop before; out on the pavement it had a right like all others. The Pawnshop gave off only low-level breezy cool; you needed to pass hard against the wall and slow in order to collect anything at all. (Nothing like the booster freeze NTUC or the Malls pumped twenty metres in their siren call.... Try putting your hand on the rail by the checkout for example.) Doubtless perfumed, the tissue sagged from the woman's hand either end—feline was feeling it alright. Scent was an added boon for the poor distressed creature.
            Goochey, goochie, goo. Poor love. Hus slightly embarrassed at the diverted tenderness you could tell.