During a time when banks were struggling to stay open, Bonnie and Clyde still harassing the ones left, there lived a small black and white kitten. The kitten was originally born with blue eyes, a cute pink nose, and pink paws. She had no name, as she was born a stray.

she quickly became street-wise. Her mother always nudged her away from people and dogs. She learned that they were no good. She learned cars, she learned about trains, and she learned about hunting for pigeons and rats. Anything that could not be eaten and moved was a threat. Those were no good. 

The windows she walked past screamed about "presidents", "Hitler", and "Depression". People moved more sluggishly than when she was born. 

The year was 1934, and John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and Bonnie & Clyde had all been killed. It was nearing Christmas, but people still slugged through the streets, dog-tired and on the verge of tears. Dust bowls, war, and the crushed economy loom heavy on their shoulders.

The kitten, now a full-grown cat, didn't mind. There were still rats and mice, still pigeons, still plenty to do and things to see. She was content as a stray could be, though the stores rarely left out bacon fat and meat scraps anymore. They were hording them, and with the food being horded, came mice and rats. 
Content.
She was very content.

A movie was being filmed in that city. She was surprised by the commotion and went to see what was going on. There were many people, many sounds, and many words being exchanged. She was so confounded by one of the contraptions - a huge hulking black thing that was pointed at people as they spoke to one another - that she didn't notice someone approaching her. So entranced she was with this situation, all these people, all the excitement, that she did not hear the angry voices of people.

"Get that cat out of here," the director shouted, waving his beret angrily. 
"Just want to toss it or what?" asked one of the men near him. 
"Just get rid of it," he said, going back to shouting orders towards the actors standing near the edge of a building. 

She stepped closer. 
The people she hadn't noticed stepped closer.
She heard something. Turned.
A billy club came down viciously. 

Caught only just by the black machine, the cat's death went recorded by its unblinking eye. As it was the 1930's, the death of a single stray cat was unnoticed and uncared for. But someone did notice, and someone did care.
The actress the cat had been watching, June Duprez, who was preparing for a roll in René Clair's film version of Agatha Christie's [i]And Then There Were None[/i], noticed the cat's death. She didn't think much of it at first. 

But it got to her. At night, she had dreams about a cat that walked up to her, purred, and rubbed against her legs, more than happy to see her. The images wouldn't get out of her head.

After her death in 1984, her oldest daughter was going through June's things when she noticed a sketchbook. She opened it and found sketches upon sketches of a cat. It was the same cat, drawn differently on every page. June's daughter took the sketchbook and became enamored with this cat as well.

And so it was - a stray that had chanced an approach to people, only to be killed, became immortalized quietly within the hearts of a few people. June Duprez, then her daughter, then a man who bought the sketchbook in an auction, then the man's daughter - the list went on. But the cat, whose last moments had been captured by that unblinking eye of a camera, lived on. If not physically, then in the minds and hearts of a handful of people, and the camera. 

It's said that if one listens closely to the streets of that city at night, you can hear the soft, curious mewling of a cat. You can see her, now in black and white...