Returned from a 4 day road trip—3 of which were mostly road.
The cats missed me, but particularly Bob, because he welcomed me home in his
usual over-the-top Uber feline way.
Hadn’t been in the house again for more than an hour, when I heard keening
outside the door. It’s “Tigger’s” wurra-wurra-wurra, deep, and, somehow, both penetrating
and nasal. Nasal of necessity, because he only makes this yeowly cry when he
has some pitiful victim clamped between his jaws. Yesterday, amid the blooming daffodils and
the greening yard, the red buds getting ready to burst and send the human
community into a coordinated allergy attack, was the last day for a poor bunny,
probably little more than a month old.
I foolishly opened
the door and Bob rushed in carrying it, a tiger with head held high, proudly
bearing prey. The sad little head and ears dangled on one side of his mouth,
the adorable baby legs on the other. I ran to catch him and he dropped it at my
feet. When I gathered it up in a napkin, it was still warm and floppy.
“Damn you, “ said I, which was not the response he was
looking for, even though I didn’t really push the regret and sadness I felt into
the words. After all, he’s not a kid, he’s a cat, and, in his feline way, he truly
meant well. I placed the corpse back outside on the porch. Bob followed and lay
down beside it. He stretched out, head up, like some Serengeti hunter relaxing with
a freshly-caught antelope. As I gave him a quick stroke, I realized that like the
LOTR’s Gollem, he’d brought “master” a lovely present. As Peter Jackson said it: “Eat them! Eat them,
they are young and tender!”
~~Juliet Waldron
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