THE TINY PRESENT (April 18, 2020)
I found a dead mouse on the cobblestones close to my front door. It was tiny. The size of a small coin, its body looked like a ball. I realized that it was a mouse by its gray color. Only when I looked more closely, I saw its tiny pink tail and its chewed-up head. One of the street cats must have caught it, killed it, and brought it to my door in hope of some food. From time to time, I leave something for the cats to eat by the stairs of a deserted house not far from mine. And the cats know it. Judging by the tiny present, they must by hungry. This time of year, they get lots of food from tourists visiting Motovun, but the coronavirus pandemic has changed things. And how. There has been not a soul in sight since the middle of March, when the Croatian government quarantined the country for a month. The way things are shaping, the quarantine may well be extended till the beginning of June. Without tourists around, though, street cats are doomed.