Black Fur Makes Bad Camo (Re-post)

Black Fur Makes Bad Camo
Towards the beginning of the semester, there used to live a family of cats in front of Seguin Hall. There was a mother and a bunch of babies. People liked to put food in front of the hole they lived in. I don't know exactly what happened to them. Maybe they were caught and taken somewhere else. Maybe the babies grew up and left the nest to seek out their education and make a better life for themselves. Maybe they all died.
Whatever happened to them, only one cat remains that I've seen. Maybe he couldn't get any good scholarships and he didn't want to be weighed down by student debt.

The other day, I was walking out of Seguin Hall and noticed a girl who seemed to be intently staring at something. I followed her gaze and saw the solitary black cat stalking a squirrel.
"Cool!" I thought. "Let's see some nature in action!"
It really was quite a sight. There he was, crouched and creeping silently towards the squirrel, like a lion preparing to pounce on a gazelle.
It certainly looked like this little guy thought he was a lion. However, there was one fatal flaw in his thinking.

The cat might as well have been holding up a neon sign saying "Free Murder Here!" It's black fur did nothing to conceal him. The squirrel stared straight at him.
For a while, nothing happened. I hoped that maybe the squirrel was so dumb it thought the cat was some kind of curiously shaped rock.

Or perhaps it was hypnotized by the cat's slow, smooth movements.

Unfortunately, the message finally reached the squirrels tiny brain that it should probably be concerned, so he skittered up a nearby tree.
At first, it didn't seem like the cat was fazed. It looked like it was still stalking something. On closer inspection, however, I realized the cat wasn't creeping anymore. He had subtly shifted into a lying down position. There was no bloodlust in his eyes. He looked around innocently, as if saying "What squirrel? I don't know of any squirrel. Murder? What? Me? I would never kill something so small and fluffy!"

But I knew the truth. He was defeated. He would continue to go hungry, the shame of his failure his only companion.
I started to internally blame passersby for scaring the squirrel off, but I knew that the real culprit was the cat's own black fur. "If only it were night time," I thought.
I like to think the cat eventually caught the squirrel. Perhaps he realized his weakness, and decided to use the cover of darkness as his ally. He would find that squirrel's tree, climb it, and silently and swiftly end his pathetic, furry, acorn-gathering existence.

I just realized, the head of my black cat looks like Astro Boy's head. And now I have the old Astro Boy theme song stuck in my head. Oh well, not complaining.

(Note: I don't own the character Astro Boy. He's owned by Tezuka Productions Co., Ltd. That's right, I totally looked that up. Look at me being all non-plagarizy. Definitely a word.)