New driver Archie “Accident” Harris was way over the speed limit as he turned onto that street. Archie was known to have little patience, and often it was said he had even fewer brains. He had one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand wrapped around his iphone. His mother’s car had a fantastic stereo, and Archie had it turned up so loud that pedestrians felt the music thumping, sure the glass windows of the stores he passed would crack under such stress. 

Tabby cat was sitting in the middle of the road way when Archie’s car squealed around the bend. Tabby wasn’t distressed, she’d heard cars squeal before. She didn’t even look up from licking her paw as Archie’s car screamed towards her.  Archie wasn’t paying attention to the road. He was watching the iphone screen as he swiped past the song options, “Fantastic Fridays,” sounded okay but it was Tuesday, and  “Someone to Watch over Me,’ was too corny to risk being sen listening to it. The scream pulled his attention to the world outside his windshield and slam on the brakes. 

Archie’s mother’s car left two long black skid marks that looked from above like an equals sign. The stubborn tabby hadn’t moved. When Archie got out and approached her, she just looked at him with all the patience in the world. “You stupid cat!” Archie began. “Get out of the roadway! You wanna get killed?”

Behind him Archie heard another car slam on it’s brakes. He had left the driver’s door open on his mother’s car, and he turned around just in time to see an Amazon truck smash the driver’s door off his mom’s car before skidding to a stop.  

When the Amazon driver got out, tabby took advantage of the open Amazon truck door to explore the parcels. She found two catnip toys and a rubber mouse before the traffic jam was cleared.

Wait in the shadows, like a cat in a house, 

Pride in its whiskers, arched on the window sill

Knowing it’s catch will be caught, 

Knowing it will not be lost.

Patience is virtue, brains calm and steady.

Traffic jam distress, be the one in the many. 

Look through the glass and see 

stubborn people in the street

Out of their cars and fantastically splayed

Showing their lack of patience, but all of their disarray.

Patience is virtue, and what is virtue but a virtuous patient

A patient of patience is what a virtue should be, 

And you should be in the cycle, in which a virtuous patience should complete

The way I held my pride,

Was how I held my books 

Floppy and small 

I was too stubborn for my own good,

My patience running thin. 

Never asking for help in my distress. 

When my cat dropped my glass on the floor and broke it,

It felt symbolic for me to clean it up by myself,

Outside the window of my room, traffic piles up.

To be in that traffic jam, I would die. 

My fantasic brain wouldn’t have the mental capacity for that.