He's my neighbor so I pay him a visit quite often and every time his cat, Timo, runs at the door as soon as he ears me coming. I'm not really supposed to play with him because I'm allergic, but I just can't help myself.

This cat is funny because he's always meowing. Not the short type, the long and complaining one. Like longs MeeEeEooooOooOOwwwwwW. It's really like he's trying to talk to us and actually, he's always been an incredible communicator.

For example, one day I come from work and see him trapped the hall. My father came home did not saw him pass the door when he entered his apartment. The cat always tries to go outside, but when he manage to, he chickens out and wants to go back inside. So he was there wandering in the hall and as soon as the he saw me, he caught my attention with a brief meow and when he saw that I was looking at him he turned his head up and looked straight at the door's knob above him and meowed again.

It was a clear: "Servitor! Turn that thing so I can go back inside".

I laughed and let him in. But I was still amazed by how well this cat understand the fundamentals of communications.

Then one day I had an idea.

OK, he might be able to grasp the basic communication principles, but could he detect or decode more subtle communications patterns ?

He tries to communicate with me by meowing because it's all he can do. I can meow back at him, however I would just reproduce sounds, this would not be communication. It must be a somewhat frustrating situation for him.. You try to communicate something to someone far more intelligent (I sincerely hope so), educated and capable physically using all your physical limits and all this person does is to reply in his own language or mimics yours almost perfectly but just repeats what you said incoherently.

So for almost a year when I went to my father and was about to leave I'd say "Bye Timo" and blinked one eye at the cat.

I though it was the perfect subtle communication for my little experiment because it's a movement that doesn't require any particular physical capacity but yet, it occurs quite rarely naturally.

I mean, usually when you blink you blink both eyes.

So for a almost year I blinked at a cat and he would only stare back at me without any reaction, just like any cat would.

Sometimes I had the feeling he really saw my blinks, but all I ever got back was a blank stare or a meow.

Until today.

When I was about to leave, the door was almost shut and I heard a meow..

Then I though "Oh yeah, the blink".. I reopen the door pass my head through and say "Bye Timo!" and right when I was about to blink that little fucker sitting still on the carpet looked at me and blinked.