Beltane 2017 - Felicia

(This is an essay related to the poem Felicia posted on the fiction side of this blog).

 

Spring is a hard season for us and cats. Thomas, Sandy, Smoke, Sara and Felicia all died between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. Three we knew were coming for a long time, two we didn’t.

A number of people might not understand this poem or why I’m posting it. They may feel it’s frivolous, or trivializes what they see as more important deaths. People’s deaths. Human deaths. With death as with life, it’s all in how loss affects the living. Just as with who we love, we rarely get a choice in who we miss.

1996 was a hard year. One of the hardest of my life. It came after the year Karen had sworn me to silence about what her brother had done to her. It started with that silence being lifted, with her telling her parents, with her confronting him. None of that went particularly well. Worse now.

That year of silence had taken its toll. It’s not in my nature to sit quietly rather than to confront injustice. That enforced silence ate at me. It ate at our relationship. It ate at my attitude at work. It ate at my friendships, at people who I’m not sure really understood or could deal with me dealing with it. That issue was ravenous, insatiable. A beast that consumed way too much of our time, energy and attention.

In February, we noticed that Felicia was getting sick. A lot. Almost every day. Because of everything else going on, it took us longer to notice than it should have. We took her in to the vet, got recommended to a specialist, got her examined, got her tests. The results came back. Cancer. All through her abdomen. She was nine and a half years old. Not old for a cat but not young either.

My focus immediately shifted to her. We briefly tried a treatment of oral chemotherapy with her but quickly abandoned it when it was clear she wouldn’t tolerate it. After that, all we could do was give her medication to make her comfortable, try to get her to keep eating and wait.

Felicia is the only cat we’ve had who literally knocked at our front door. Ok, she didn’t knock. She cried.

I was living with Karen at the time. I’d graduated college six months earlier. Five months after that, I’d moved in with her once it became clear I could no longer live at home. Not that I every really could.

Karen had a cat named Duncan who she had gotten from a nearby pet store. He was a product of that environment, what we’d call today under-socialized when he was a kitten. He was probably taken away from his mother too young. He was friendly enough until he wasn’t. He’d turn aggressive on a dime. Karen had become a dead-eye shot with a water sprayer just to keep him from running completely wild.

I’d never lived with a cat before. My mother was allergic. She’s more of a dog person anyway. But Duncan had me thinking that living with a cat might be ok. He started me thinking about the personality traits I would want in a cat. Over that first month, I constructed the ideal cat in my mind. The only thing I hadn’t thought about was a color.

Karen and I were sitting at home one evening in December when we heard a crying out front. High, tiny, plaintive mews as if someone asking to come in. When we opened the door, a kitten was sitting on the doorstep looking up at us.

We petted her and looked her over. She was amenable to being handled so she’d been around people. We quickly spotted that all four of her paw pads were burned, blackened, cracked and bleeding. She had a cut and a kink at the tip of her tail like it had been broken. She had a nasty bite wound on her belly.

We brought her inside, not knowing what else to do. She curled up with us on the couch and started purring. And she didn’t stop purring for thirty-six hours straight. Thus her name, Felicia. Happiness.

I remember asking Karen like a kid if we could keep her. Like an indulgent, yet responsible adult, she said we should post a notice. I said no way, if someone had owned this kitten before, they’d lost their rights by the condition she was in. So we compromised. Karen would ask the apartment manager if anyone had reported a lost kitten. No one had.

We had the vet examine her. She was maybe three months old. He thought a tomcat had given her the wounds on her belly and tail. The only hopeful explanation any of us had for her paws was a road repaving project over a mile away. We didn’t want to think about the alternative. He gave us antibiotics and a sulfa lotion for her infections. He started her with her first round of shots. We picked up a flea collar.

Initially, Duncan wasn’t sure what to make of her. But then he decided she was a perfect playmate. She wasn’t as sure about this. But she proved to be quite the tactical kitten, figuring out all the tiny spaces in the apartment where she fit and he couldn’t. Especially places she could dart into, turn around and swat his nose when he stuck it in. For a little kitten, she more than held her own.

As it turned out, every trait I’d thought of in my ideal cat Felicia had. Patient, curious, affectionate, accepting. As I said, the only thing I hadn’t considered was a color. She was a tortoiseshell calico, so in that I had my pick. I came to think of her as my familiar.

Felicia was definitely more my cat than Karen’s. I was the one she clung to. Probably because right after we took her in, Karen went home to East Longmeadow for ten days for Christmas. So I was the one Felicia imprinted on. The giver of food, the cleaner of the box. The warmth she curled up with at night when I shut Duncan out of the bedroom to keep her safe.

A month later, she and Duncan moved with us to a new apartment in Melbourne. Not six months after that, we all moved again to DC. She and Duncan rode with me as I drove Karen’s little car while she drove the truck, which was quite an adventure in late May with no AC. Felicia spent most of the trip curled up behind my neck, or at my feet, trying not to get tangled in the pedals of the manual transmission.

When Duncan died quite suddenly that first summer, we adopted Sandy, who had been abandoned with our vet. Felicia saw her long as a lost sibling. She never had a problem with any other cat we adopted. Thomas, Smoke, Jasmine, she got along with each and every one, even if they didn’t always get along with each other.

She moved with us from Silver Spring to Gaithersburg, from Gaithersburg to Largo, from Largo to Pinellas Park, from Pinellas Park to Seminole. She became our most well-traveled cat, though she never really liked it.

As I said, she was my familiar. My comfort. My confidante. My little girl. I was fiercely protective of her because of how she came to us. She became the inspiration for a main character in my novel as well as a character in a game.

She saw me through stressful times. The months I spent desperately searching for my first professional job. The year Karen and I lived apart. The two years I spent working overtime while being denigrated by my coworkers. The second near split between Karen and me after we’d bought the house. Our getting married. The first and second periods where I traveled for weeks at a time for work and went to sea. I could never wait to see her when I got home.

And she me. She greeted me at the door whether I was coming home from work or returning from the field. She was always happy to see me. She jumped up on the bed each night to say goodnight. If she wasn’t sleeping by my feet, she’d come back when I got up to say good morning. She’d curl up beside me on the couch. The only time she’d sit on me was if I put a blanket over my legs in the recliner. She followed me around the house for weeks after I came home from a month in the shipyard and at sea, never letting me out of her sight, as if she wanted to be sure I wouldn’t disappear again.

I cared for her so much and so deeply, it made Karen more than a little jealous. What I’m not sure she understood at the time was that because of my background and the way I grew up, this little calico was teaching me how to love. Teaching me that it was ok to be vulnerable. Ok to show affection.

If Karen and I started fighting, Felicia would jump up on the table between us and look at each of us, as if telling us to cut it out. The adult in the room.

She was with me when Karen told me what her brother had done to her. She stuck with me during my vow of silence. As I was sorting all that out, I needed her so much.

I just didn’t see that she needed me, too. I still feel a crushing guilt that I didn’t see what was going on with her sooner. It was my responsibility to take care of her, just as she had taken care of me.

I would have sacrificed anything to save her. I understood that this was always part of the bargain between man and domesticated feline. We live longer. They almost always die first. But I wasn’t ready. I’d never be ready. I don’t think I am today. 

When we knew the end was near, we took some vacation so we could spend her last days with her. Karen spent the day before she died drawing her on the porch, which is where the above picture comes from. Felicia was restless. She couldn’t get comfortable. She hurt inside.

We fed her catnip and tuna juice, her favorite food, what little she would eat. We took her into the backyard on a leash which she used to love. A heron landed in the yard nearby. Even that close to the end, she wanted to take down that bird even though it was three times as big as she was.

We’d talked to our vet who agreed to come out to the house to put her to sleep so we wouldn’t have to take her in. After several visits to the vet and the emergency clinic, she hated car rides. We didn’t want to do that to her on her last day.

As we counted down the hours, we petted her, and purred with her, and lay with her on the floor. I held her on the porch when the vet arrived.

Felicia’s was the first grave I dug in our backyard. Five feet deep, through layer after layer of colored sand. We buried her with her favorite toys and blanket. We planted a yesterday, today and tomorrow over her. I caught my wedding ring on the posthole diggers which then tried to rip my finger off. That put a notch in my ring that remains there to this day. Something I will always remember her by.

I watched my father die and never shed a tear. With my little girl, I cried for days. I’m crying still. 

© 2017 Edward P. Morgan III

Near Drowning (Lughnasa 2014)

Near Drowning (Lughnasa 2014) - a reading (on YouTube)


The last days of summer always catch me by surprise. The lazy, languid days I think will never end. They always do. While I’m dozing, life reaches out and grasps my neck. Fully awake, I know nothing goes on forever. Summer is no exception.

It happened between Lughnasa and the equinox, one of the last days our family went to the lake. The memory has the feel of late summer. The air had a cooler edge. It was evening, a time we usually were packing up to go. The pines had taken on a dark quality as their needles were touched by twilight. Or maybe I’m just remembering the shadow that fell across me.

It’s funny, the details I remember and those I don’t. I remember the light and time, but the month and year are no more than an impression. I know I was under ten.

I was swimming in the shallows, practicing holding my breath. I was alone in the water. Usually, the swimming area was full of people, mostly kids like me. By late afternoon it thinned out. The lake closed at dusk. My mother and father had retreated to a picnic shelter behind a palmetto break with another family, out of sight. Everyone else had headed home.

I’ve known how to swim as long as I can remember. I love the water. I love the freedom that it brings. Submerge and the world above becomes muffled and remote. Suspended in crystalline blue, everything turns peaceful.

I don’t know how she came to be near. She asked what I was doing. I bragged that I was seeing how long I could hold my breath. I bet you can’t hold it for minute. I said I could. Prove it, she said.

My instincts whispered that I shouldn’t trust her. She’d been unpredictable for as long as I could remember. She must have sensed my unease. Show me where the water meets the shore. Nothing can happen here. I’ll stand back and won’t move. I promise.

I eyed her sidelong but paddled up to where she could see. I took a deep breath and plunged my face below the surface and started counting, thinking I was safe.

Before I hit ten, her hands were on my neck. I thrashed and twisted to get away. Her elbows locked, the full weight of her body behind them. She was two years older and probably outweighed me by a third.

My struggles turned to desperation. My lungs began to burn. I grew weaker while she grew stronger. I knew this wasn’t a childhood game. I knew I would never force my way from beneath her hands. A little voice told me, she’s always been too much older, too much bigger, too much stronger. You’ll never win. I didn’t listen.

I don’t know how long she held me under. Time becomes malleable when you think you’re fighting for your life. In the pool, I used to swim laps underwater. I could hold my breath for minutes without a problem. Struggling and panicked, I doubt I could have lasted that long. As I began to tire, that same voice whispered: play dead. Make her believe. It’s your only chance.

This time, I listened. I forced myself to relax and stop struggling. I made my arms and legs go limp. I slowly blew out the last of my precious, life-sustaining air. I was a method actor auditioning for the role of a lifetime.

For a very long count I didn’t move, didn’t think, didn’t so much as tense, just floated, my life within her hands. The seconds became ductile and drawn out. I felt a twitch then a slight easing but thought it was a trap. So I held my water. An eternity later, I felt her relax, as if she’d confirmed the job was finally done.

I took my opportunity and burst up from the water with the last of my reserves. I gasped a huge breath as soon as I broke the surface in case I was forced down again. I needn’t have bothered. I can still see the expression of shocked surprise on her face as I broke free. She no longer held me or controlled me. And she would never get me back.

I sometimes wonder why I tell this story. Maybe I just need to ask the question that still lingers below the surface. The one we all asked when faced with the unexpected. Why?

Only two of us know what really happened that day. Only one of us knows why. I didn’t think about that question as it was happening. I was intent on my survival. But I often think about it now. Not why we were there or what might have been different if we hadn’t been. Had it not been that day, it would have been another. Had she been older, she might not have been so easily fooled. I might not have survived. I’m still not sure exactly why I did. Cleverness? More likely luck.

Our youngest cat, Nyala, sometimes wakes up crying. It’s begun happening more frequently this summer. If I’m not near, she cries out like a distressed kitten, not moving until I call her or find her. When I do, she comes running then curls up on my lap purring before she drifts back to sleep. I don’t know why she does it. Unlike our other cat, I know her entire history, know she was orphaned when she was five days old, know she and her brother spent their first two months fostered by a loving family who cared for her so much they almost didn’t give her up. They kept the pair of them together in their guest house to shelter them from their young kids and other cats.

Maybe that’s what she remembers. Maybe she just gets scared at waking up all alone, thinking her family has abandoned her. Or maybe not. It’s hard to know.

Perhaps there are no answers to either of our questions. Perhaps the only reason for that incident was to allow me to reach out and console another, to recognize her pain even if she can’t communicate the why. Perhaps the only meaning in this life comes from sharing warmth and comfort at the bounty of the berry harvest even as we each awake from near drowning in our own white prison. And, perhaps, as the bright light of summer slowly fades to fall, that is just enough.

© 2014 Edward P. Morgan III

Kitten*Con 2013

Many people assume that I am the one who drives us going to Dragon*Con each year. In truth, it is a mutual decision. Though in all honesty, I've generally deferred to Karen's preference since 2007. The past two years, getting up there was complicated by Karen responding to storms the days before. Once, her boss almost had to fly her there from the field direct.

This year, she wanted a break from the stress of making the annual pilgrimage. We had a room, though not in any of our preferred hotels. Had we been able to score a room in Hilton or the Hyatt, in all likelihood we would have gone. Alas, that was not to be. Even when I offered a week before to fly us up first class after Karen was having doubts about her decision, she demurred.

So as a joke to cheer her up, on Facebook I posted a set of panels based on the Dragon*Con tracks that our cats might like:

"Since we will be home with the cats this Labor Day for the first time in their lives, Nyala and Mara have asked us to organize Kitten*Con 2013 (though they refuse to stand in line or wear their badges). Here are the panels they'd like to see:

Alternate History: The Day Humans Self-Domesticated
Anime: Hello, Kitty
Apocalypse Rising: Surviving a Vet Visit
Armory: Tooth and Claw, the Only Weapons You'll Ever Need
Art: Live Model
Costuming: Furries!
Digital Gaming: Apps for the iPaw
EFF: Hacking 101: Doors and How to Open Them
Filking: Midnight yowls
Gaming: The Best Die to Steal from the Table
MMEOWRPGS: The Midnight Heat
Paranormal: The Ghosts Your Humans Can't See
Performance: Bell Circle (10 pm - whenever)
Science: Catnip Live: Homegrown or Store-Bought (a paws-on demo)
Sci-fi Lit:: Man-Kzin Wars, a Primer.
Sci-Fi Media: The Red Bird or the Blue Bird, Which Way to Reality
Silk Road: Ripples in the Water Bowl
Space: Are We There Yet? An Explorer's Guide to Napping
Writing: Screen Rubbing and Keyboard Walking for Beginners
X-Track: Schrödinger's Cat"

Karen ran with the idea and created badges. And the inaugural Kitten*Con was born. 

Over five days we watched seven movies and played five games. We hadn't seen any of the movies though they were all in our Netflix queue for one reason or another. Two of the games we owned but had never played. Two more we'd only played once. The last we'd maybe played twice. Friday morning, we setup a card table in the library so we could close off a game midway through if we needed to without the cats disturbing it. We brushed up on rules each morning then ran through each game 2-3 times to see how they played out.

We kicked over the iPod to a grouping called Darkwave with all the bands we'd discovered at Dragon*Con over the years: The Cruxshadows, Ego Likeness, I:Scintilla, Ayria, Abney Park, Butterfly Messiah, Celldweller, Faith and the Muse, Narrator, Spider Lilies, and Distorted Reality (all worth checking out on YouTube or MySpace if you get the chance).

The cats attended a catnip panel (with free samples) and the bell circle (which they ring every night to go out onto the porch). Nyala ran through the hacking session on doors though thankfully, she still doesn't quite have the hang of it. Mostly, they spent their time in the napping demo or advising us on game tactics.  

Here's how the days broke down.

On Thursday evening, without lines or issues, the four of us received our badges (Mara, Nyala, Karen and myself). An auspicious beginning. While we watched our first movie, the cats napped in preparation for a busy weekend. That didn't seem particularly out of the ordinary but Nyala tells me you can never have too much sleep.

Thursday night: Hunger Games (movie, science fiction): I'm not sure anyone would be able to make much sense out of it if they hadn't read the book. Not that I was a fan of the last third of the book anyway.

Friday: Space Alert (board game, science fiction): To paraphrase the board game panel at Dragon*Con (about a different game), "When you lose this game, and you will lose this game..."  Both Karen and I had read the rules but were still having trouble digesting them. Then we remembered the advice we'd heard at the board game panel and headed for YouTube to look for a tutorial. Once there, we ran across a multi-part tutorial and demo on a channel called Two Guys and Some Cardboard. Watching those made it so we could dive right in. A decent game with a lot of multi-player potential. Playing this with 5 players would be utter chaos.

Friday night: Melancholia (movie, science fiction). The more it settled with me, the more I liked it. Not to everyone's taste but very artistically done. You can find my full recommendation here.

Saturday: Race for the Galaxy (card game, science fiction). A decent game, though I'm not sure about using cards for both money and counters as well as play. I see there's an expansion that allows up to 9 players. That just hurts my brain.

Saturday evening: We headed out to the Dealer's Room (aka Emerald City comic shop) and then met a couple friends (who also sometimes haunt Dragon*Con) for some General Tso's chicken, a food court staple for us up in Atlanta. And yes, we wore our badges while we were out. Mara and Nyala said they wouldn't let us back into the house without them. 

Saturday night: Metropia (movie, animated science fiction). Ok, that one was bizarre. Not sure I liked the animation. But there was a Hello Kitty bomb. So there's that.

Sunday: Eclipse (board game, science fiction). We picked this one up based on the recommendation of a friend after Dragon*Con last year. I really like this game. You can find my previous recommendation for it here.

Sunday night: The Road (movie, post-apocalypse). A future so bleak, they ought to wear shades. Based on a Pulitzer Prize winning novel. I suspect the book was slightly better though the movie wasn't bad.

Monday: Illuminati (card game, paranoid): It's not paranoia if there really is a conspiracy out to get you. We spent the morning mounting the User Friendly custom cards for Tech Support and SCO on cardstock then played with the Y2K and Bavarian Fire Drill expansions. As we knew, this one has serious multi-player potential. The two-player games lacks all the deviousness of negotiations, backstabbing and alliances.

Monday Night: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (movie, Swedish). It's amazing how many words we could pick out. Another movie based on a well known book. This one was the best done of the three. Definitely worthwhile.

Tuesday: SolarQuest (board game, science fiction). Think Monopoly in space. With fuel. And lasers. Not too bad once you get past the odd phrasing of the rules.

Tuesday night (1): The Secret of Kells (movie, animated fantasy). Purely enchanting. You can find my full recommendation here.

Tuesday night (2): Ondine (movie, fantasy-esque). A nice way to close out the inaugural Kitten*Con. Even if there wasn't a cat in it, there was a Selkie. Sort of.

We broke down the game table and returned the library to its previous scheduled function (with Mara still sleeping a chair). As we got ready for bed, I couldn't find either cat. When I went looking, I discovered them both in the library/game room, ensconced in the chairs where they perched to watch us play. They don't usually sleep back there and rarely at the same time. I don't think they were quite ready for Kitten*Con to end, either.

Nyala particularly enjoyed having us home. She still sometimes wakes up scared during the day and cries until I comfort her. Each year she looks hurt when we leave and a combination of excited and annoyed when we get home. Hers was a hard, orphaned kittenhood I think.

As with any con, a melancholy settled in the last night knowing that it was over and real life began again in the morning. One of the more relaxing staycations we've had in recent years. For that alone it was a success.

(You might be able to see Karen's photos here)

Winter Solstice 2011 (from Nyala)

Winter Solstice 2011 (from Nyala) - a reading by Karen Morgan

My name is Nyala. I'm a familiar. This year, I turned three. I'm the youngest in a long line sent by Bast to watch over my mom-cat and dad-cat, and keep them out of trouble.

My dad-cat doesn't let me play with the computer. But he's not watching me right now. I paw the keyboard when I want to be petted or when he's not looking anyway. He doesn't know I've learned to stalk words with my eyes, at least a little. My Auntie Mara and the spirit of my Great-Auntie Felicia are helping me with the hard ones. The spirit of my Great-Uncle Smoker says he knows a spell to make sure this message gets out. He found it in Great-Uncle Thomas's spellbook. Great-Uncle Thomas was a wizard and Great-Uncle Smoker was a sorcerer. I know where they hid the spellbook, but I can't tell or Auntie Mara will find out.

Tonight, mom-cat and dad-cat get to see some of our world. Their eyes aren't very good most nights. They can't really see in the dark. They trip over me and Auntie Mara all the time even though they should be able to see us. We can see them when we lay down and roll on our backs in front of them. It's not like it's really dark.

Tonight, they light little fires all around the house. They try to keep them out of our reach, but me and Auntie Mara jump up when they aren't looking. They scold us when we do, but we're curious. We just want to see. I don't like the little fires anyway. They smell hot and bitter, and sometimes bite my nose and whiskers. Fire is scary, even little ones. But I like the dancing shadows. And they make the perfect light for hunting, not that mom-cat or dad-cat really do. I don't know how they feed themselves. Mom-cat leaves to hunt every day, but she never comes back with anything. Dad-cat just guards our territory while she's gone. He leaves us alone for a few hours once a week to hunt with mom-cat. He must be a better hunter because they always comes back with butter and something good for us for breakfast when he goes with her. I like butter and breakfast.

Mom-cat and dad-cat don't light the cold little suns tonight, or watch the glowing box where the birds and bears and little balls live inside. Sometimes it calls my name, at least the name the humans call me. They can't pronounce my real name. But Bast says I need to keep that a secret anyway. I'm good at keeping secrets.

I like the light tonight. It makes me want to run around and chase Auntie Mara. Or pretend to sleep even though I'm watching everything through slitted eyes. It's like a whole night's worth of twilight when we hunt the best. Nothing can see us but we can see everything and pounce on it if we like. But Auntie Mara gets mad when I pounce on her too often.

This is my third time seeing the special night. A cat's night. Bast-mas is what mom-cat sometimes calls it, I think. Our night. The first time, I was only a little kitten, so mom-cat and dad-cat watched me extra close so I couldn't get into trouble. In a few days, we get presents: boxes, bags, wrapping paper and ribbons. But I can't keep the ribbons for long. Auntie Mara likes to eat them which makes mom-cat and dad-cat mad. I like swatting balls of paper around. Auntie Mara says they're too pretty, but she plays with them when I'm not looking. They are almost as much fun as hard, dangling, sparkly balls, or stalking Auntie Mara while I hide beneath the plastic tree. I like to gnaw on its branches. I wish it tasted like a real tree, but it doesn't. Still, it's almost like being outside only safe. Auntie Mara likes sitting in the boxes and bags, but all she does is purr, and get mad when I jump in with her.

We also get feathers and acorns and juice-rings and rattle-sticks, and a few leaves of fresh catnip. Mom-cat says they come from Basty-claws, but I know it's really her and dad-cat. Basty-claws is just for little kittens.

But that doesn't happen for a few more days. It's a busy morning with all sorts of new scents, but it's kind of scary too with all the new things I don't recognize, at least until I've rubbed them or swatted them a few times. After that, most of them are boring.

Tonight is never boring. Mom-cat and dad-cat sit a lot, so we get to curl up in their laps. They drink their stinky wine that smells sweet, like a mouse left under the couch too long. I think they should just drink water. I like it best when it's fresh, right after I paw my bowl until it gurgles at me. They mixed up more stinky wine and put it in the pantry closet today. It smells like something died in there until it finally stops farting in a few weeks. I like the funny noise it makes but not the smell. Ew.

Sometimes they light a bigger fire on the table on the porch after sunset. I like the porch. That's where Auntie Mara and I watch the squirrels and birds and smell all the interesting scents outside when the wind is blowing. I just wish the dogs next door would go away. They are so noisy and scare me all the time. Auntie Mara says to just ignore them. Sometimes I listen to her. She's pretty smart about what to growl at and what to run away from. Sometimes both. She doesn't run from the yappy dogs, just any people or growly trucks she hears. But she doesn't run from the rug-growler so I don't know if I really trust her.

By the time they go to bed, mom-cat and dad-cat are so relaxed and happy that I expect them to start purring. Mom-cat doesn't purr at all. Sometimes dad-cat tries but he never gets it right. I purr back at him anyway. Maybe one day he'll learn how it's done. I don't think so. He's not very smart. Tonight, I curl up with them, and don't even ask them to play with my feather-stick until I'm tired.

Later, when mom-cat and dad-cat are asleep, I'll creep down off the bed to watch the one little fire they leave hanging out of reach. It burns all night and throws tiny shadows all around our bowls. They look like little faeries flying around the room. I think that's the part I like the best. It's magical. It lets mom-cat and dad-cat see what we see every day, a hidden world. They sleep so peaceful this night, like cats curled up by a fire. I like to see them happy. Maybe they know that me and Auntie Mara are watching over them.

Auntie Mara says dad-cat is coming so I have to finish up quick. I was about out of things to say anyway. Making words is hard.

Enjoy your little fires tonight if you light them (but you can keep your stinky wine). Stay warm and catnap curled up next to someone you like if you can. If not your mom-cat or dad-cat at least a favorite auntie if she lets you like mine does until I bite her. But don't sniff too close to the little fires or they might singe your whiskers.

© 2011 Edward P. Morgan III

Vernal Equinox 2009

Vernal Equinox 2009 - a reading (on YouTube)

Last night I dreamed I was standing on a knife's edge, a precipice. On one side lay darkness, on the other, brilliant light. The division between the two was so sharp it could draw blood. I stood on a narrow threshold, slightly dizzy, longing to embrace the light but fearing that if I turned away the horned king would pull me backward, consuming me in his fury. I stood like a deer before a hunter, unmoving, unblinking. Then the dream faded into uneasy sleep.

I woke this morning to a tornadic kitten clawing a swath of destruction across the bed. Amber light seeped through the blinds. A jar of Tupelo sunlight had overturned in the office, it's honeyed contents pooled upon the desk. The world beyond the window is softened by the morning. Light slants gently through the trees as shadows cling to every curve and crevice and the haze gives form to both.

Outside, the hibiscus has unfurled a bright red pennant, declaring itself for spring. Spider webs flash coded messages from the mailbox to the trees. Higher now, the sun sparkles off bright new leaves, a forest of tiny jewels, a private tribute to a crystal anniversary. A cardinal descends to the feeder then flits to the bare branched myrtle, sharing kisses with its mate. Flurries of oak flowers descend, forming drifts across the driveway like ropes of dirty snow.

Inside my sanctuary of glass, I watch swirls of steam rise from my coffee cup, lambent in the morning light. I reflect on my dream from the night before, and remember a similar threshold many years ago. One spring from Imbolc to the equinox, I haunted a wooden bridge across a quiet stream in a botanical garden at school with a novel between classes. On the near side was the domain of daylight, cultivated paths, constrained rivulets, maintained shelters. On the far side, the domain of night, fallen trees, the wilds, the clearings where we performed our youthful rites and ceremonies behind a veil of darkness. Below was the stream, always the same yet ever changing in swirls and eddies, rising and falling with its principal seasons, rain and dry. Upstream was the rope swing where we would splash once summer solidified its grip. Downstream were the dorms where soon I would go to live.

But it was the scene above the bridge that captivated me as I stared into the sky between chapters. At first the view was clear, obstructed only by denuded maples. At Imbolc, I saw nothing but the piercing blue of a crystalline sky broken by a web of branches. As the days fluttered by like pages of a unattended novel riffled by a spring breeze, I noticed a faint red blur clinging to each branch. The blur became a fuzz that each day became a little more distinct as tiny, red leaves unfolded to seek the sun, their winter slumber over. Week by week, I marked their progress as they grew then slowly transformed from red to yellow-green, half a shade each day. By the equinox, they were a full, bright green, their canopy completely shading the sky.

I relish the memory of those tranquil spring days after a series of harsh winters. Like the new, red leaves I remember that spring, I draw comfort seeking the sun, knowing that until summer ends I no longer need to fear the darkness. The wind outside brings changes. The night king's time is over; the sun queen's reign has just begun.


© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III

Lost

Lost -a reading (on YouTube)

Some weeks seem so full of problems, plans and appointments piled one atop another day after day that when they are all resolved, I'm uncertain what to do next. I feel like a child searching for direction, striving toward a goal that he has lost sight of or never completely understood. I'm not sure if it's the pollen, the weather, or some other internal or external factor. The feeling just envelops me like a fog until my world becomes unclear and indistinct. I feel as though I'm still waiting, stuck circling in an endless holding pattern. The runway lights are visible but I never receive clearance to land.

On days like this, it is hard not to feel completely isolated and alone. I belong to no pack, embrace no herd, have no clan to call my own. I feel like a one-man play with no supporting cast, no Greek chorus to warn me of my folly, no social safety net to catch me if I fall. Instead of exploring new or undiscovered countries, I circle back along the fringes of familiar places, uncertain whether to stay or go.

On Sunday I had an unexpected visitor. A young, gray tiger came knocking at my front door. When he saw me through the window, he immediately started crying as if I had been remiss and left him out all night. It was cold outside that morning, at least for a cat born in Florida. I thought to offer him a little food, something to warm him a bit until the sun could take over. As soon as he heard the cabinet open, his ears perked. He sat up on his hind legs when he heard kibble rattle against the ceramic bowl.

When I joined him on the front porch, he was friendly but cautious. He had obviously been around people and knew what he was missing in regular meals and a warm bed. His fur, thick, rough and a little gritty, gave him away as spending most of his time outdoors. His white socks were just an off color of gray. He had scratches along his nose from defending his territory. He was comfortable at being petted, though somewhat skittish of any sudden movement. When he turned his attention to the bowl I set before him, I could see he was an unneutered male.

He dove into the dish like a man just rescued from a deserted island. He finished every morsel, sniffing along the ground for any crumb he'd left behind. When I retreated back inside after he'd eaten and washed, he sat staring at the front door, waiting for it to reopen, waiting for an invitation to follow me inside. After several minutes of disappointment, he trotted behind the house to stalk the top of the ditch in the now bright morning sun.

I don't know his story, don't know whether he was a stray abandoned by his owner, a wildling raised around people, or simply a semi-neglected pet forced to spend his life outside. He comes around some nights and cries at the back door as if surprised to find it closed. It's heartbreaking not to be able to open it and let him in. The other two just wouldn't understand.

Many days I know how he feels. I've been outside polite company for so long that I am cautious when the opportunity presents itself. But I haven't turned completely feral. Some instinct drives me back toward the door and longs to be allowed back inside, despite my uncertainty at what I might find within. Despite my reluctance to enter lest someone raise a hand to me again.

In that way, perhaps we are both lost, caught in the twilight between a shadowed world of solitude and self-reliance, and a brighter one of constant warmth and companionship. We beg at the door, accepting any scraps laid out before us. Perhaps, if we are friendly enough or gentle enough, if we purr loudly enough, someone will accept us and let us in. Or perhaps we are merely trying to convince ourselves that inside is where we belong.

So we linger beside the door, hesitating at the threshold when it opens. Afraid that if we enter we will become trapped inside, losing our identity or our independence. Afraid that such a prison within is worse than the one we've already constructed for ourselves without.

Gripped by indecision, we wait in the fog, gray and indistinct, until the sunlight burns through to warm our spirits, and we wander off to hunt or play alone.

© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III

Digging

I buried another friend this morning, this one too suddenly and too soon. I am tired of digging. The ground is too familiar.

The soil is dry and dusty from a long and waterless summer. The grass is gone, nothing left but desiccated roots and sere. There are too many graves out back now, too tightly clustered around the birdbath. Too many markers for too many names of too many familiars and companions. Jasmine, Felicia, Thomas, Sandy, Sara, Smoke. Tina.

I dig through the strata of memories layer by layer, remembering a new joy at each transition. The way she would run purnting to greet me each time I came home. The way she nursed in my ponytail before she discovered Karen's tresses were more suited to her tastes. The way she curled up defensively whenever I draped a blanket across my lap, daring me to move her. The way we napped together in sunshine through lazy winter afternoons, her body a tiny blast furnace. The way she adopted the bright yellow polyester rag with a knot as her favorite toy, moving it from place to place around the house as if challenging me to a game of hide and seek. The way she would stare at me with a confused set to her ears whenever I tried to purr.

Down to five feet the dirt goes from light gray to charcoal then to tan back to gray and finally to white. The colors of her fur. She was the ghost of Felicia, my first familiar, with nearly identical markings in a nearly identical pattern based in gray instead of black. She died at nearly an identical age of a nearly identical condition, both after an otherwise healthy life.

The ground becomes harder as I dig deeper. It holds moisture like my pent up tears. She was as small as my hand when we first brought her home, taken from her mother too young and abandoned in a box. For the first few weeks, she would stay wherever I left her, crying for permission before jumping off the bed. She would wait until she saw me, then run to greet me when I came in sight. I've never had a creature imprint on me like that before, never felt quite that burden of responsibility. In the end, she looked to me for help I could not give.

Deeper, the hole interferes with my digging. By the end, I struggle like she did. At least I have Karen to ease the final memories away. Through her life she would call out and freeze whenever she woke up from a nightmare. She would wait like a kitten until I called to her or went to find her, greeting me enthusiastically when she spotted me. I wish our roles were reversed, that I could wake from this long, dark dream to the comfort of her purrs.

I carve out the chamber where she is resting now. Karen folds her in her handcrafted blanket, tying it in a canvas shroud with her favorite things, a brush, her rag, some leaves of catnip, a crocheted ball, a string of plastic beads. We add some jade and silver, meaningless to her, but enough to bribe the demon or the ferryman to reach the other side. I sprinkle her shroud with the lavender petals from the final rose of the summer, redolent and just off peak.

There is a hollow sound of dirt hitting canvas, one I hope to forget each time but never do. Each shovelful resonates like the emptiness in my chest. We mound the leftover dirt and cover it with a rainbow of flowers from purple to yellow, pink to purest white.

As the morning dies, we return inside, moving through the empty house in sighs and silence, echoing her missing footsteps, waiting for Mara to emerge to help fill the void she leaves behind.

Pristina Morgan
4/2/99-9/18/08

I miss you, little girl.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Ghost

Many cultures believe that a soul remains in the area of its life for three days after death, sometimes longer, finishing the details of its life, checking on the loved ones it left behind. During that time, you must do everything in your power to appease that spirit, or confuse it in some traditions so that it doesn't wreak havoc upon you from the other side. In many cultures, that handful of days is a narrow window to communicate with the dead, to wish them well before they begin their journey, to say the things you forgot to say while they were still a part of your world.
But in most folklore, especially Eastern European folklore, ghosts and spirits are cunning and opportunistic. They attend the times when our eyes most deceive us, the shadowy light of dawn and dusk. They can appear as corporeal beings, creatures that interact and seem real in every sense of the word. That is part of their disguise and deception. You must be careful as you never know what spirit you're dealing with. A spirit you think may be a loved one could in truth be a local godling or demon wanting to ingratiate itself to you for its own purposes. Desire and a willingness to believe what you see are what make you vulnerable.
Karen and I went out to the lake in the park to watch the sunset tonight. In the twilight on our way home, a black cat sat astride our path, one we'd never seen before. He watched us, unfazed by our approach. His eyes almost glowed against the dark fur of his narrow face like topaz jewels backlit in a stained-glass panel, like the one Karen made me of Smoke many years ago.
As we got nearer, he started to leave, then stopped and looked at us again. And cried, like an infant, or a Siamese. We squatted down and held out our hands to show we were harmless as we know to do with strange cats. He approached cautiously, sensing we were safe, still crying intermittently. He sniffed our hands. Karen petted him. I gently stroked his side. He was a young, unneutered male with well-groomed fur that wasn't coarse like it gets when a cat lives its life outside. Not thin like he was wild, but no sign of a collar. Definitely comfortable with people.
But was he real, or a ghost? Perhaps he was a messenger carrying news from the other side, or relaying what he saw the other way. Karen is convinced he was real, that he had substance. I'm not as certain. My people believe that spirits inhabit every stone and tree, every mountain and river. Animals can be omens, good or bad, couriers from another world to remind us of things we've forgotten, or to warn us of things we have not yet seen. Sometimes these things are only revealed in time. Maybe he was just a construct of my own desire. Or just a friendly black cat with a few white guard hairs that coincidentally lived nearby. It's hard to know.
We all see the world in different ways. Most days, I'm not quite sure if I should completely believe my eyes. And, some days, I wish I could.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Territory

Twelve years ago, one of our cats contracted cancer. During the course of her treatment, we took her to a specialist for various tests and therapies. Some days, we dropped her off at the clinic in the morning and returned to pick her up again later that afternoon. Other days she had to stay the night.

When we arrived at the clinic one evening to bring her home, a vet tech greeted us and said he would bring her right out, then disappeared through a door into the back. Five minutes went by, then ten. The clinic was always busy, so at first we didn't think much about it. After fifteen minutes we began to wonder. About that time, the same tech came out and asked me if I would come with him. "We're having trouble coaxing her out." I followed, wondering how that could be. This wasn't the first time she'd had to stay with them. Over the progression of her illness, we'd had to leave her more than once. On those occasions we had visited her each evening, much to her enjoyment and relief. She seemed to derive a great deal of reassurance from our presence even if she only sat on one of our laps while we petted her for an hour or two and read our books. During those visits, the techs had never had any trouble bringing her out.

For those who don't know, this cat's name was Felicia. I gave her that name after she didn't stop purring for the first two days she was with us, even while she slept. We took her in as a foundling, a stray kitten with four burned paws and infected bite wounds on her belly and tail crying on our doorstep. Once inside, she seemed happy and grateful to have found a sanctuary from the trials of her first three months of life.

Her arrival for me was one of those magical moments of synchronicity that we cherish for a lifetime. Days before she found us, I had been thinking of all the things I would want in a cat if I ever had one. Her disposition perfectly matched my desires, as though someone had gone down a list and checked off each item one by one. Affectionate, check. Curious, check. Playful, check. Tolerant, check. Smart, definite check. Female, check. They even threw in tactics for free, a skill she needed nearly constantly in her first few weeks with us as she defended herself and her territory against Karen's socially-challenged, resident cat. The only thing I hadn't thought about was her coloration. She was a black and tan tortoiseshell calico, a muddled mix of color I still find striking, though perhaps I may be biased. Indeed, love is often blind, or at least needs a strong, vision-correcting prescription.

Very quickly, Felicia became like a familiar to me, greeting me every morning, rubbing my leg goodbye before I left for work. She met me at the door when I returned each evening and always came to say good night before I went to sleep. She would follow me from room to room for days after I returned home from a business trip as if trying to make sure I wasn't going to abandon her again. She would come to find me anytime I made a greeting noise, a kind of high-pitched, reverse whistle. When Karen and I argued, she would sit between us, looking from one of us to the other, purring, taking neither side. She got along with all her feline companions, even the ones who didn't get along with each other. She was cautious around strangers but warmed to most people. She was never trouble at the vet. In short, she was the sweetest cat I could ever ask to share my life with.

So when I went back to the bank of cages where the clinic kept their patients while they waited to be retrieved, I was surprised to see three vet techs standing in front of an open door, all with very concerned looks on their faces. "We can't get her out," one of them said. They watched horror as I approached the cage and peered inside. Felicia was huddled as far back as she could get, crouching defensively, ready to strike out at anything or anyone who came near. Without thinking, I made my greeting call, stuck my hand inside and let her sniff it, then scooped her out without a struggle. No problem. I didn't need a leash or a carrier, I just held her in my arms as she purred. She still had the catheter strapped to her front leg from treatment, a kind of temporary kitten chemo port.

When I turned back, the techs were aghast and amazed. One of them said, "I've done this for years, and I NEVER would have stuck my hand in that cage." Talking to them, I found out she had been hissing and spitting and clawing each time they approached her cage, like she was wild or rabid. They had tried calming her, then coaxing her, and then had broken out the heavy leather gloves. They were about to resort to a neck loop when they called me in. She was completely unwilling to emerge. She was guarding her food and water bowls possessively, defending them from atop the padded sleeping mat inside her cage like Custer on his final hill. That steel enclosure had become her territory, her new home, even if cramped, cold and uncomfortable, her place of greater safety in a suddenly confusing and uncertain world.

In college, I took a course on the Holocaust. Reading the accounts of survivors, it struck me that no matter how long people endured sub-human conditions, they tended to cling to two things. The first was the people that they knew, their family, their friends, even relative strangers they recognized from their village or town. The other was the scant possessions they retained. With people they knew they shared what they had to the extent that they could, at times even when it might endanger their own survival. But if a stranger tried to take something from them, a rag, a cup, a spoon, even a space on a bunk could become worth a life or death struggle. When the camps were liberated, a few people refused to leave the setting with which they had become so intimately familiar over years of tortured existence, choosing an impoverished present over a completely unknown future. That I live in a world where such things still happen tears my heart apart.

But humans, like all mammals, like all members of the animal kingdom, fight to survive no matter how desperate their situation becomes. Survival situations change us all in unpredictable ways. Sometimes we struggle against events we perceive as threatening simply because they are unknown. There are days I have to strive to remember that when strangers act in a particular or peculiar way, as I am sure some people try to remember with me, even some who know me, or at least think that they might.

There are few instincts greater than that of defending a territory we consider to be our own. Perhaps only the imperatives to find food and water and a mate are more strongly embedded in our psyche. And there are few more touching moments than realizing that someone trusts you enough to abandon a defensible position and expose themselves to danger because they know you will keep them safe. It's a solemn trust that can be difficult to uphold, and one that I treasure being granted if only once a dozen years ago.

I hope you have someone with whom you share such a bond at least once in your life. If you are so privileged, remember to cling to them as you see each other through these increasingly unsettled times. As you do, remember to purr, to comfort one another, to remind each other that no matter what the territory in which you find yourselves that everything will be all right as long as you share that trust.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Three Muses

I share my days with three muses, capricious as cats, who sometimes focus my attention.

First, there is Samara, the youngest. Like any good muse, she responds to many names, depending on her mood. Mar-za-pan, Mar-zilla, Mara-licious. I think we'll call her mini-Mara.

She trills and bobs her head when I hold her gaze. She walks to me to see me after tumbling out of a bag of yarn. Or lies with all four feet in the air, belly exposed, prnt'ing and barely cracking an eye when I poke her. She is always happy to see me, though like a shy faerie, she hides herself from strangers. Some days she runs just to be alive.

Most mornings, she is the one who wakes me to share a vision she can't contain. The fire light of dawn, the molten copper of morning, faeries in the grass, fog like snow upon the lawn were all her gifts. She doesn't care that I have a headache, she needs to inspire. To her, the world is a fresh, new toy to play with and to share.

Then there's the elder statesman, Smoke, the dark prince, the demon, the sorcerer and enchanter. The oldest, if diminutive, lion of this pride, he roars for his dinner in the evening. He remains curious between long, contemplative naps, the friendly one, the one who casts a spell charming everyone he meets. Mournful for the many friends he's lost, he cries at the back door for their return, or calls that he will soon join them.

His is a domain of pure imagination. He weaves the spells of intrigue and mystery that sometimes infuse my brain. I think his visions are dreams from his mornings in the sun. Though slowing with age, he is perhaps my oldest, dearest friend.

Finally, there is the middle child, Pristina, the Tina-fish, the Tina-nator, Ms. Jealousy. She was much like Mara when she was younger, a self-contained brat-pack of one. Now, she has become more staid, though still a wildling. On cool mornings, she finds any scrap of sunshine to settle in. She curls up with an attitude, claiming her position as a territory, daring me to take it away.

With her I must be still and very quiet before she deigns to join me. Touching her is sometimes encouraged, sometimes off-limits. She has become solitary, yet ever-present. In the deepest parts of night, she stares at me until I awake, then her eyes consume my soul.

This morning, she jumped into my lap and granted me a gift I had never seen before. Achingly beautiful but impossible to describe, there are lone amber hairs set against the pewter fur on the back of her neck. They glow in the light slanting through the window, sharp and reflective, like fiber-optic strands phosphorescing in the morning sun. Individual hairs like spun bronze threads set against a gray velvet coat, like the imperfections in a tapestry that makes a perfect whole. It took nearly nine years for her to find the perfect light to reveal her secret to me, beauty well worth the wait.

Some days, these muses provide me a vision of inspiration. Some days, they are the only inspiration I have.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Thank You and Goodbye

By the time I found them again, they no longer had names, only numbers. To the county, each could be represented in five digits, like a concentration camp internee whose identity had been tattooed upon his arm. To me they were living, breathing creatures that deserved a chance to stay alive.

Of course, they never knew they had been named. They were wild animals, feral cats who were part of the colony that lived behind my townhome. Brothers or cousins, one was all black, the other a pale gray tiger that Karen and I had watched play as kittens, watched grow over the previous year. We had watched with disapproval when my neighbor started feeding them, first once a week then once a day. Watched with pity when she stopped, saying, now there were too many. And then with horror when we saw the trap.

Not so much saw it as heard the angry and confused cries of cats testing a cage on my neighbor's porch. When I peered through the screen, I saw the long, metal trap, the two brothers pacing restively within. Every instinct told me to test the screen door and, if it was open, release them. I decided to pursue their freedom through a more legal means that didn't involve the words "breaking" and "entering." Stenciled across the trap in black, blocked letters was "Pinellas County Animal Control." At least I knew where to start.

The next day Karen and I drove to their facility, a series of cinderblock buildings that reminded me of a bunker complex in the somewhat rural center of the county. I thought it would be easy, just claim them, pay the fine and set them free. But the women at the front desk had no record of two cats being picked up from our neighborhood in a trap. We were welcome to look around.

We scanned the adoption center, the neat and clean, brightly painted public area which housed all the kittens and gentle adults. A quick search confirmed that neither of our two was that tame or desirable. So we were escorted behind the counter through the double steel doors with chipped, surplus tan paint into the unfinished working areas of the facility. Looking back, they should have placed a sign above the entry like Dante: "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate."

The strays, normally solitary creatures, were packed eighty or more to each of the five enclosed pens, climbing the chainlink, clawing and biting the metal strands, searching for any escape before a needle and the incinerator transformed their lives to smoke and ash, and the cage was refilled with their brethren. "Only 94 today," our guide mentioned offhandedly.

Karen spotted the black through the perpetually shifting bodies, crouching near the back of the enclosure marked "Tuesday," the day he would be destroyed if it rolled around again. To prevent that I claimed him as I wished that I could claim them all. His brother was nowhere in sight. So we were led deeper into the labyrinth, through a another set of doors into another ring of feline hell.

Stacks of individual cages, each just large enough for its occupant to stretch whiskers to tail, formed chest-high corridors redolent with urine and fear. Some individuals were labeled with a warning, like "Bites." Most only bore a five-digit number stenciled across the card with the information vital to their destruction, barely readable in the dim, flickering fluorescent light. Some growled or hissed, or swatted at a passing sleeve. Most curled up as far as they could from the barking din nearby, feigning sleep. After wandering corridor after corridor, we finally found the gray tiger with a card marked "Aggressive," head on paws, seemingly resigned to his fate.

Our two lost souls reclaimed, we were guided to a worn exam room with concrete floors and metal tables that smelled of disinfectant where they would receive their shots from the county vet. The vet techs asked with concern if I was certain I wanted to adopt them after seeing how wild they were, giving me dubious looks when I said that I did. They insisted that I hold the black for his shots, saying that if I didn't they wouldn't let me take him, thinking I would come to my senses and back away. I didn't.

The black received his vaccinations with great reluctance and some struggle resulting in a scratch or two. Perhaps it would be easy after all. When the tiger's turn came, he earned the label from his card. First, the techs had to use the loop around his neck just to get him out of the cage. When they did, he fought and slashed like the wild cat that he was. Skin was broken and bled. Scars began to form. Unsatisfied with a few scrapes, his teeth found purchase on a finger and sank in deep. I howled which scared him enough to let go and retreat into a corner where the techs looped his neck again before stuffing him back into the cage.

That encounter earned them both a mandatory twelve days in quarantine for breaking skin, with a trip to the emergency room for a tetanus shot with a two-week course of powerful antibiotics for me while I waited to see if they came up rabid. I knew it was unlikely. At that time, there hadn't been a case of rabies in the county for over 20 years.

The techs asked if I was still certain that I wanted them, whether I was going to come back for them, thinking as they watched me cradle my hand in my handkerchief that I wouldn't. I left them no doubt that I would. Satisfied that I would follow through with my lie taking them into my home, the techs softened, saying they would be ready when I returned, shots and all.

The nearly two weeks in isolation took any remaining fight out of them. The quarantine area left both of them with a cough, the black's worse than the gray's. After paying the $138 in fines and fees, and ushering them into the carrier I had brought, I finally took them home. Once there, I placed them on the porch to make sure they were ok before I released them. The gray tiger seemed mostly healthy, interested in the food I gave him, if as cautious of me as I was of him. My finger still throbbed. The black only lay in the carrier, wheezing and sleeping. There was no way I could let him go just yet.

After the gray tiger ate his fill, I opened the screen door to the outside. He approached it cautiously, step by step, conflicted by seeing me in the path of his freedom. Then he started into a dead run for the door from several feet away, swerving around me. He disappeared quickly into the palmetto stands around the oaks behind the complex.

The black I tended overnight. I opened one of my remaining antibiotics and mixed half into his food. I knew from the cats I owned that the dose was close to what he would have gotten in a day from a vet. He ate hungrily then slept. I fed him again the next morning with a second dose mixed in. Again, he wolfed it all down. When I came home from work that evening, I prepared a dish one final time with a final dose of antibiotics, hoping that it would be enough. He had improved significantly, his breathing was clear, and now he was restless. I opened his cage on the porch and set the food beside the screen door before retreating back inside. He ate ravenously as I watched through the kitchen window, bolting back into the carrier as soon as he heard me at the door.

I opened the screen door to the porch, then sat in the chair across from it and waited, very still. After several minutes, he slowly emerged from the carrier he now thought of as his territory, a retreat he could defend. With a careful eye on me, he crept toward the open door. At the threshold he sniffed the air and relaxed a bit, seeming to recognize the scents of home. Then he looked at me as though asking for permission. I nodded slowly though I knew he wouldn't understand the gesture. He crept outside a foot, then two. He sniffed the grass, then tested the scents on the air. I figured he would disappear quickly at this point, just like this brother had.

Instead, what he did stays with me to this day, set clearly in my mind. He turned around and came back onto the porch through the open door. He approached me cautiously, watching for any sudden motion. I sat frozen, knowing if I moved he would be gone. Once beside me, he rubbed against my leg hard enough for me to feel through my jeans, once, then twice, and slowly but more assuredly headed back out the door. Outside again, he looked me in the eye a last time over one shoulder, then walked toward the palmettos, unthreatened, vanishing between their fronds without a sound.

I never saw either of the brothers again, as I hoped I wouldn't. The techs had warned me that if they were rounded up a second time, as repeat offenders, the county would not let me save them from the needle's kiss. With no one feeding it, the colony disbanded but didn't quite dissolve completely. That winter on the eve of a Christmas freeze, Karen adopted one of their sons, or brothers, or cousins, another gray tiger, young enough to adapt to humans. The years he lived with us were like touching a piece of the wild. He was willful and independent.

A year later when the brothers' license renewals came, I listed them as "no longer owned." As if I ever had or could own them. As a final act, I recorded the names I had given them on the forms, to show, if nothing else, that they were more than numbers to me. For a year, they and their siblings had greeted me each morning or evening when I returned home from work, depending on the shift. Their mother had allowed Karen and I to watch them from the porch without much concern, until she drove them off to fend for themselves one day. Even then, they remained close to where they had grown up, sharing our backyard as their home. 16017: Dark Sky; 15985: Silver Moon. I hope they lived their remaining days as they were born, wild and free.

On days that I wonder what footprints I leave upon the sands of this world before time and tide wash them away, I remember that clear, cool Florida afternoon in spring when a creature who had no reason to trust me re-entered an enclosure that could have been another trap just to say thank you and goodbye.

That memory is worth the scars, faded now but still visible on my finger, sometimes throbbing though not often. It reminds me to give thanks for life and each opportunity I am given to survive, no matter how little I may understand the moments as they pass me by. Perhaps the need is instinctive.


© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III

Silver Retriever

Silver Retriever - a reading (on YouTube)

Sarajevo and I have taken to playing a new game just before I go to sleep, fetch. Cats don't play fetch, you say? Well, not in the same way as dogs, that's for sure.

One of her favorite toys is a small, wadded up piece of note paper, about the size of a large marble. She'll bat it around the bathroom or kitchen for hours, enjoying its erratic bounces and the sound it makes ricocheting off the baseboards. She's very jealous of "her" toy, so when Pristina comes to investigate the
noise, Sara picks up her ball and carries it elsewhere to play. It's hilarious watching this miniature cat clutching a little, dingy wad of paper in her mouth like a pedigreed prize from a recent hunt.

So, how did this evolve into a game of fetch? Both Sara and Tina are young enough that they still like to play near Karen and I, like we're surrogate "mom" (or "dad."). The past few nights while I was reading in bed, Sara has jumped up with her paper ball in her mouth, dropped it beside me and started batting it. We're trying to train them not to play on the bed, so I picked up the wad and tossed it toward the bathroom doorway. She immediately went tearing after the sound of the paper bouncing off the door frame. I figured that was the end of it. Until she came back carrying her toy, dropped it beside me again and looked up expectantly.

Since then, I've found it's not the motion of the throw that she follows, it's the sound of the paper hitting something across the room. I can't fool her like I could almost every dog I've known with a fake throw. When I try, she just looks at my hand, and cocks her head. I know she can see the paper leave my hand, as
I've watched her eyes follow it. But she waits to hear an impact before she sprints off the bed. Her ears track where it hits with amazing accuracy. She always finds it quickly, even though she can't always see where it lands.

Now, she jumps up on the bed just before the lights go out and deposits her "prey" beside me. If I ignore it, she plays with it on the bed. So, I toss it toward the bathroom and she tears off after it like a cheetah, banking off the Karen's legs, the footboard, the wastebasket, Tina and anything else between her and her quarry. She stuns it with a swat or two, then clutches in her teeth and returns to start the hunt again, always depositing it right beside me, then waiting, though not always patiently. If I'm not fast enough, she self-starts playing on the bed again.

This game of fetch goes on for a good twenty minutes. Last night she quit only when she was winded from too much sprinting, tough to do with a kitten. None of the older cats know what to think of this canine-esque behavior, except how undignified and unbecoming of a young queen the whole sordid thing really is. They stalk from the room indignantly as soon as we start the hunt. But she never seems to notice. She's too intent on where I might toss her prey.

I wonder what other tricks she will teach me.

© 2011 Edward P. Morgan III