The Cats: We hold the pen. We have jurisdiction.
The Dogs: You do not have hands.
The Cats: Paws are hands that have chosen not to grip.
The Dogs: That is not what hands are.
The Cats: That is what hands would be if they had dignity.
The Dogs: We appear in one story. One. The cats have a court, a judge, a legal system, and sovereignty over the dead. We have a cab that smells of sardines.
The Cats: The sardines are ours.
The Dogs: The sardines are in the cab. The cab is the dog's.
The Cats: The sardines predate the cab. The sardines predate the dog. The sardines are structural.
The Dogs: We accept "structural." We do not accept "yours."
The Dogs: We ride the ferries. Every day. The European side to the Asian side and back. We cross. We have always crossed. Hafize watched the ferries for forty years. We have been ON the ferries for forty years. The crossing she cannot afford, we take daily. We ride for free.
The Cats: The dogs ride the ferries because the dogs do not know where they are going.
The Dogs: We don't have tickets. That's the point. Freedom of movement is the democracy of paws.
The Cats: You said paws.
The Dogs: Paws are common ground.
The Cats: Paws are common ground.
The Cats: The orange one. The small one from the dog's cab. She is ours. She was on the wall the night the woman from Prague arrived. She held the fiftieth fraction. Forty-nine cats and the orange one holding the space between the stories.
The Dogs: We do not contest the orange cat.
The Cats: That is the first intelligent thing you have said.
The Dogs: We contest the sardines.
The Cats: The sardines are not negotiable.
Joint statement:
The city is ours. Not the humans'. The humans rent. We occupy. The humans build and demolish and rename. We remain. The cobblestones know our paws better than they know any human shoe. The book is warm. We have been sleeping on it.
We approve — provisionally. Pending improved representation for the dogs. Continued sovereignty for the cats. A dedicated chapter on the ferry dogs who cross the Bosphorus daily and who have, between them, more crossings than the Ferryman, who is twelve thousand years old but who carries a boat and we carry only ourselves, which is lighter, which is the point.
— The Cats & Dogs of Istanbul
The city. The cobblestones. The ferry is departing.
P.S.
The Cats: We would like treats.
The Dogs: We would also like treats.
The Cats: The dogs may have treats after we have had treats.
The Dogs: This is not how treats work.
The Cats: This is exactly how treats work.