Going gray — Zetaropy

Zeta started out one color — black, all over, and nothing else. Nearly a year on there is texture, and pale hairs coming in at her ears and along her muzzle. Four photographs, in order.

Late December. Solid dark, nose to tail — no exceptions yet.

By March she was looking back: gold eyes, a direct stare, and a small pink tongue caught on its way back in. The expression lasted a fraction of a second. The camera happened to be faster.

Close-up of a young dark gray cat's face with gold eyes, the tip of her tongue visible below her whiskers — Mid-retraction. She would deny all of this.

The two September photographs are close and unflattering on purpose. That is where the change is. The coat is still dark but no longer one color: silvery hairs have come in at the base of her ears and over the back of her head. None of them were there in December.

Extreme close-up of a dark cat's ears and the back of her head, showing pale silvery hairs mixed into the dark fur at the ear bases — September. New hairs, not a trick of the light.

They have reached her face, too. A patch along the side of her muzzle, caught while she dozed chin-down on the edge of a desk.

Close-up of a dark long-haired cat dozing with her chin resting on the edge of a wooden desk, eyes nearly closed, a patch of pale gray fur visible on the side of her muzzle and cheek — Also September. Mid-nap, mid-correction.

A kitten, a tongue, and a coat changing color on its own schedule. Nothing was staged. All of it took less than a year.

Going gray.

Going
gray.