There's a man with a box of kittens.
Martha doesn't usually come this way but it's so nice out, a perfect spring day, and she thought she would take the long way back to her flat. She's glad she did.
The man sits on the cracked cement steps of a closed-up little shop, a cardboard box of kittens beside him. There are four: two black ones, one black one with socks, and a pure white fellow with clear blue eyes like a clear sky.
The man's as perfectly nondescript as any homeless person might be, all nonthreatening posture and muddy city-colors, as if he's merely an extension of the cement he perches on. His hoodie is some color that might once have been tan, his jeans a faded brown-gray, his ancient canvass trainers patched with bits of brown packing tape. He's ageless in the way of transients, with a young face and old eyes-- or is that, an old face and young eyes?
And his hair is a ragged mess, and the bundle of mysterious shopping bags on his other side is dirty and a little frightening, and he's rocking back and forth, gently, tapping out some inaudible tune against his knee.
And yet when he smiles a wide, ageless, perfect smile at the kittens, he's gorgeous.
"They're darling," Martha tells the man, and leans over to examine them.
"They're kittens," the man says, and grins another dazzling young/old grin.
The kittens tumble and cheep, ignoring her hand's intrusion into their ordered little box-world, but the white kitten deigns to waddle over and smell her. It sneezes, unimpressed.
"What happened to their mum?" Martha asks, stroking the precious thing between the ears.
The man looks sad, and it is like the sun going behind a cloud.
"She had an accident," the man says. "These things happen."
"I'm sorry," Martha says, sincerely.
"Me too." The man looks away, looks at his clasped hands. "I'm so sorry..."
He has blood on the ragged cuffs of his sleeves. Scratches on his knuckles.
She picks the white kitten up.
"Can I have this one?" she asks.
"What would you call him?" the man asks back.
Martha holds the kitten at arm's length and studies it for a moment. It stares back, stupid and innocent as all new things are.
"You have to watch out for the white ones," the man says to her. "Pretty little things, but they're all mad, you know. They'll break your heart."
"Smith," she says, "I'd call him John Smith."
"Strange name for a cat," the man says. "Even a mad white one."
"He reminds me of someone I used to know," Martha says.
"Was he mad?"
"Oh, he still is."
The man grins, and it, too, is somehow stupid and innocent, for all the lines and dirt on his face, for all the sharp fire in his eyes. Stupid, and sweet, and happy.
"You take care of your Mister Smith for me, miss," he says, and wags a finger at her.
She smiles.
"Always, sir," she says, and reaches into her purse for some money.
Something stirs in the empty shop. She draws back sharply.
"What was that?"
The man looks at her, guileless as a child.
"I don't know," he says, "probably just a rat. You can put away your money, miss, the kittens are free."
"Ta, then," Martha nods, and turns away. She cups the little white kitten to her chest, the poor thing already struggling against her, and she keeps her head down as she walks away.
She doesn't look back.
She doesn't have to.
Behind her, in shadows of the empty shop, the Master is watching her. He has blood on his hands, fresh enough to smell.
Well, then: so does she.
So do they all.