Many cats have chosen our house or garden to give birth.
One day it rained and while the litter made it out of the rain, one was left behind.
I rescued it and packed the others around to keep it warm.
Perhaps this was Alicia.
Out of the entire litter, Alicia couldn't get
enough of me. As I returned from work,
even before I stopped the car, it would jump up onto the bonnet and even walked
along the window sill. "Come on out slow poke. The adventures are about to start."
One day, it stopped happening.
It transpired that my mother persuaded a neighbour to take these cats
and dump them far away.
A rift, no, a chasm opened up between my mother and I until her death.
I love cats but I also intensely dislike some so I am the exception that breaks the
myth of Toxoplasma gondii. Or maybe I have simply not been infected at all.
Then came Xena. It took months to tame her to the point she would rub her
body against my legs. Mittens never reached that stage but she in her last days
would sleep between my feet. Xena had one litter. A Tom showed up. Could he
be her consort? He was short haired and had the biggest mouth I ever saw.
He would chase off all other males. He was big and tough. We called him Stonecold.
I was
terrified of him whenever he came close. This is the funny bit. He was scared of
Xena and there in front of him and her kittens, she would rub herself against me.
Xena was the first of my cats to get poisoned. Where I used to park my car in the
garden, I buried Xena. Google Earth can show you where that is. I like to be able
to tell people that I can read the licence plate of that car over there.
Alicia happened when I first started to drive.
Fast forward until my
retirement. Mittens was with us for years and her fur
was getting threadbare. The end was near and one day she just disappeared.
Mittens was a cat who didn't realize she was a cat. I just seem to have weird
cats. I called her that because she never hunted. I have a picture somewhere
of birds pecking in the grass near her.
There was just one other cat{brother's} left. Ryan{long story} lost her first litter and had
3 in her second litter. All were coloured differently. One day I saw that one
seemed to have an eye infection and could be blind in one eye. So I adopted
that one and fed it in a cage so that the others couldn't steal his share.
And this is Jacksparrow. It is half-cat-half-dog. There was no eye infection.
Ryan was too poor of a mother to care for her kittens. He grew up stronger
and bigger than the other two.
Why do I say he is half-dog? Well, he runs around at full pelt. I was so worried
that he would get killed by a car that I offered him to my cousin who just built a
house up in Chiangmai. He was so lively that one bell was not enough on his
collar but 3 bells. He was to be my
retirement cat. My last cat since the doctor
gave me 6 more years at best.
Then one day the bells were silent. He was dazed. I knew from past
experience
that he had been poisoned. One year I found 6 dead stray cats along my road.
I have those kind of neighbours.
This is what I wrote to my cousin:
Subject: Silent bells, silent bells, silent all the way
Yesterday as I was at my usual spot of the drain scooping
water into my watering cans, I detected the familiar odour
rotting flesh. It can't be from J's grave since not even flies
know where that is.
Just now, I looked under my car and there was the body
of the last of the kittens, a two-beller.
Mittens has gotten bolder lately and is able to saunter
into the house instead of furtively slinking around or
waiting for me to carry her past the gauntlet of jinglers.
J has always been the one to chase her.
It has been awfully quiet since you know.
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