Day after day, the same ritual. Warm compress. Gentle wipe. A single, perfect tear reappearing by noon.
Miso sat on the arm of the sofa, one eye gleaming clear and sharp, the other weeping a slow, rusty tear. It wasn’t sadness. Cats don’t cry for reasons we understand. This was plumbing—a tiny, clogged duct somewhere behind her tortoiseshell mask.
Sometimes I think she’s fine. Sometimes I think her body just found a small, harmless way to look like it remembers every loss I’ve ever told her about.
I dabbed it with a warm, soft cloth each morning. She leaned into the pressure—just for a second—then flicked her tail and walked away, offended by my concern.
The vet called it epiphora . Too fancy. Miso just looked perpetually moved, as if she’d finished a sad book hours ago and couldn’t quite shake the final page. A brownish trickle stained her white bib fur, then dried into a little comma under her eye.
The duct stayed clogged. The cat stayed dry-eyed, except for that one steady leak. And I stayed there, cloth in hand, wiping away a sorrow that wasn’t even hers.
Here’s a short piece based on the phrase “cat clogged tear duct”: