Priscilla Ann Ing
July 9, 2006
Writing 3
KOSHKA
My life before this moment is not important; what matters is now. I’ve been walking and looking for food every since I was dumped from the car. My stomach is empty but I feel life inside. Pain cramps my body, over and over again, telling me I must find a place to lie down. I don’t know what is happening to me but my instincts are leading me to finding shelter and protection.
Ahead of me, through the tall grass in the early morning light, I spy a house. It has a large wooden platform attached to it. Maybe I can hide under the platform, just long enough to rest and wait for the pain to stop.
“Russ, we’ll be back around noon. Liesa and I are going to breakfast after the Butte to Butte Walk & Run. You might want to straighten up the deck a little. Guests should be arriving around 5:00. Is the barbecue clean and ready for tonight?”
At last, I’ve found a quiet, dark place. I hear footsteps above me, but they don’t know I’m down here. My body still hurts, both from hunger and the cramping. I’m about to give birth. I don’t know why I think that, but I do. I need to protect my babies.
“Hey, Bryan, come out and help me get the bar-b-q cleaned up. I forgot to scrape off the grill yesterday. Boy, it’s going to be a hot day. Bet Mom and Liesa are sweating bullets. Hope they remembered their sunscreen.”
One, two, three, four. My babies are here. The pain has stopped. I know I need to clean them up, and get rid of the birth tissue. A raccoon, dog, or another cat could smell it and know my babies are newborn and helpless. They need to nurse and I know what I must do. I’m hungry and, oh, so thirsty.
* * *
“Hi, guys. How’s your 4th of July going? Come on out to the deck. Russ has the Polish dogs on the grill and they’re almost ready to eat. Just put your salads with the other food on the island in the kitchen. At least the flies won’t have a feast like when everything is setting out on the picnic table.”
My kittens are dry and fluffy now. Three are back and white, just like me, and one has gray tiger stripes. They want to stay near me, but I need to get food. I can hear the people above me and wonder if I should take a chance. What will they do if they know I’m here? “Meow, meow, meow,” I cry as I reveal myself from under the platform. “MEOOOOW!”
“Woah, where’d that cat come from?”
“Don’t feed it! It’s just a stray. Ignore it!”
“Mom, he’s hungry.”
“If he’s hungry enough he’ll go home.”
“If he’s a stray, he doesn’t have a home to go to.”
“DON’T FEED IT! We’ll just put up with the yowling and it will leave. Boy, none of the cats from the old farm ever sounded like that. I bet it has a Siamese ancestor.”
“Meow, meow, meooow.” Well, I didn’t get any food, but they didn’t chase me or hit me either. I’ll try hunting for something in the tall grass. I got lucky that one time near the hay bales and caught a mouse. Those birds seem like easy prey, hopping around on the ground. One of them could be a great dinner. And I saw some water at the bottom of the flower pots on the platform. I really need a drink.
* * *
“Mom, it’s been three days and the stray cat hasn’t left. We need to give her some food. Look how skinny she is.”
“She’s skinny all right. But she’s also just a young cat. You can see she’s not full grown. Have you picked her up? I bet she doesn’t weight much over five pounds.”
“She won’t let me pick her up. All she does is yowl, and really doesn’t want to be petted either. When I put my hand out, she shies away.”
“OK, get a bowl with some fresh water. She shouldn’t have to drink out of the flower pot saucers. If you want to get a box of cat food, with your money, go ahead. This means we need to start calling places to see if someone is looking for a missing teen-age kitten.”
“I haven’t seen any posters in the neighborhood advertising for a missing cat. We could run an ad in the newspaper.”
“Hey, look what I found. This old jar of tuna that I canned after that fishing trip four years ago.”
“Oh, Russ, not something that old. And home processed. We don’t want to kill the cat.”
“Ah, it won’t hurt her. Here kitty, kitty.”
“Meow, meow!” Three days with nothing and now food and water. TUNA STRAIGHT! I think I’ve died and gone to heaven. These people aren’t too bad. I might even let them pet me. Maybe they’ll scratch my ears, then I’ll go back to the kittens.
“Don’t think she is going to become a pet. You know your dad and brother both have cat allergies. And don’t be thinking of naming her either!”
“OK, Mom. Come on, Koshka.”
“I SAID, ‘DON’T NAME HER!”
“I didn’t name her. That’s Russian for cat. I’m just calling her cat.”
“Meow.” I think I’m going to like it here.
Afterward . . .
Koshka came to us on the Forth of July, 1999. It was three weeks later that we heard little meows under the deck step of the patio door and discovered four beautiful but flea ridden kittens.
To make a long story short, all four kittens were adopted out, the last one going to my oldest daughter living in her own apartment. We had Koshka spayed so there would be no repeat performance of kittens. She is an indoor/outdoor cat which happened when my husband made the mistake of observing aloud that he didn’t seem to have an allergic reaction to her (We think because of her Siamese heritage.) and she was the only other “hunter” in the family. My daughter and I knew she was here to stay when Dad bought two cat doors; one for the outside door opening into the garage and one for the laundry room door which leads from the garage into the house.
Koshka, the cat and little teen mother, adopted us!
You evoke the emotions of the cat and the people very well. The change of typeface is effective. Reminds me of my cat acquisition, as we crossed paths in a park and it followed me home. Cheers ==nt
Posted by: Nat Teich | July 17, 2006 at 10:53 PM
Priscilla,
I enjoyed the cat's perspective. There's a lot more emotion and sensory here than the first copy. Great work!
Posted by: Deborah Handman | July 20, 2006 at 12:34 PM
I enjoyed your writing cat's perspective. You write about what I always suspected, our "pets" pick us.
Posted by: robin rowe | August 04, 2006 at 08:34 AM