Soon afterward, the cats enjoyed the attention so much, they started taking the lead as we went through our daily ritual of having meals and snacks at the hotel. It was while they trooped in front of us that we noticed that they were taking a curved route to traverse the street, instead of going straight across. At first, we didn’t realize what they were up to, so didn’t really pay much attention. But as time passed, the curved pattern they walked became more pronounced, so was far more noticeable. Instead of walking directly across the road, they would walk off to the left or to the right, curving back in to finish up at the hotel terrace. Going home, the same thing happened in reverse. We were stumped, but intrigued, so chalked it up to feline idiosyncrasies.
Time passed, and the route that the cats took to the hotel terrace became even more circular. They walked a half circle outline going across the street to the cafe and another half circle going back home. It was becoming very odd. We kept trying to figure out why the cats wouldn’t go straight across the road. Soon we made a game of it, giggling as we followed the spherical route that the cats took to the restaurant terrace, and then back home again.
Over dinner one evening on the terrace, we were relaxing and enjoying ourselves watching the world go by, when we were shocked by an unbelievable explosion as a passing car disappeared into a cloud of dust, right before our eyes. Running to the road with other dining guests, we found ourselves looking upon a huge gaping hole in the street with the car crumpled inside it, about six feet deep, down from the road level. It was a sinkhole, collapsing in the very spot our cats had been circling for months. We now realized that they had detected the anomaly and had been leading us around it to keep us from harm.
The emergency services personnel later told us that a leaking water pipe had caused the earth to erode under the street, leading to the sinkhole that collapsed the road. Somehow, our brood had sensed the danger and sought to warn and protect us. Happily, no one in the car that fell through was gravely injured, though the car itself looked like it needed considerable repairs.
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