Cat Story

Cat Story

This morning I got stalked. I was preparing breakfast, walked into the living room for a moment and saw  a sand and chocolate streaked tail disappearing behind the sofa.
I froze in fright, while my mind put two and two together and realized it's only a cat, and a small one at that.
Though hidden behind the sofa in my vivid imagination it had assumed fearsome proportions!
Vague thoughts of cancer or diphtheria caused by cat bites or was it rabbit bites, made their unwelcome appearance.

I hissed, "CAT, OUT."

Didnt work.."whoosh... hoosh" I tried next.
Why that particular sound should be interpreted as marching orders by the feline species I can't say.)

Cat stayed put.

I called loudly for additional assistance.
"Luke!, Josh! Come see, a cat ...CAT"

My lazy cat napping toddlers who had just had morning bed milk and were only clutching on to  bed out of sheer perversity promptly leaped out all goggle eyed and woozy footed.

This made the cat creep out cautiously undulating in a sinuous cat walk.
It then pussy footed across my clean shining floor in wary wave like motion.
Right across the floor to under the sofa on the other side.

Which having tasseled draping on it, rendered McCavity into invisible mystery cat!

Lantern jawed and shaky hearted I ordered luke to get his red plastic  cricket bat.

TAP TAP THUMP ! I was prospecting for some serious golden fur here as I tapped the bat all around the sofa...
Or perhaps detecting landmines in the catacombs of Iraq.
This cat was challenging me to only catch as catch can..
Slowly dragged the sofa to the middle of the floor.
Puss cattily showed its self, glassy hateur in gleaming eyes.
Somewhere deep down, the evictee evoked a sense of shame in me.
It was not much bigger than a kitten after all. Back in my childless and kittenish days I would've bent to stroke it, or left a saucer of milk on the stairs.
How ever that was then and this is now.
I am a hard and heartless mama these days.

I tapped the bat close to the cat's Sphinx like visage to announce: Illegal immigrant I  deport you to....uh...Catalonia, Catskill mountains or wherever you cats may wish to stray...
The cat meowed reproachful meows at me turning every few steps to give me a baleful eyeful,  as it sullenly slunk away.
Catatonic at its audacity I shooed my boys in and firmly closed the door on my four footed stalker.

However by evening our paths would cross again. In a cataclysmic event on my Richter  scale.
Just back home with my boys from a jaunt in the park, sand in our eyes, cold wind in our hair, from an approaching thunderstorm..
I unlocked our door and as the kids went in the first fat drops of rain fell.
About to go in, I heard the dread sound.

Faintest preliminary  meow.
Then multitudinous  more meows....a cavalcade... a crescendo of meows.. meaning loaded torrent of plaintive meows.

Oh My,  The Cat was in trouble.!
I promptly laid kittens....

Looked up to see cat trapped in a tight corner.
Having jumped somehow to the roof of the next house, and then slipped out through one of its windows, onto a narrow cornice cat found its entry point blocked .
Someone must have closed the window. And left the house unaware that there was a cat stuck outside.
Trapped on the ledge it was crowding the edge looking to clear the distance with a mighty leap onto the balcony above ours.
But not daring. It probably wouldn't die but left on the ledge for longer, the cat would certainly be wet and miserable.
The people next door didn't seem to be there. The house was dark and  still.
It was a strangely built house. There was an immense gap between where the cat was stuck and the floor below.
No windows below the ledge, only a sheer wall.
Sighing for the second time that day I closed my door on the cat.
Then promptly started looking for a Wooden plank or a board, anything to bridge the gap between our balcony and the ledge upon which my hapless Tenzing was squatting  against his will.
Could only find my mop stick and  my laundry basket.
With an idea  glimmering in my musty dusty  brain I took the basket, told kids to stay put, and ran up the stairs to the floor above which was level with the ledge.

Cat gave me a lover 's serenade right then and there. Shivering in cold anticipation of the freezing rain that would follow the poor itsy bitsy four footer was grateful to just see me.  Have to admit  that swelled my ego, and Mother Teresa like spirit.
Was transformed. from "felinophobe  to "felinophile". 

I gripped the balcony railing with one hand and cupped the laundry basket firmly to  the ledge with the other.
And braced myself for the impact of cat  intelligently leaping into basket of would be Cat Messiah.
And then being ferried across by moi to own balcony.
Heart  quaked with fearful what ifs!
What if the cat jumped in too boisterously and the basket slipped out of my hand?
It would be a three floors fall!
Or worse if upon impact  banana fingered bundle of nerves tipped basket over! With catastrophic consequences for cat !
Up on the ledge is better my mind screamed...

I was a human basket case holding a basket for a crazy cat in a mess.
Then Tenzing who was dilly dallying testing, or rather surveying the waters, (the basket that is), peering in deeply, trying to judge its depth, decided he would not jump into what seemed to him a bottomless sky blue pit!
(My laundry basket being pale blue-white with filigree like designs)
I was now praying "Cat jump!...Jump in Cat!"  over and over again like a mantra.
Cat mewed in despair then with deadly determination it trod upon the basket rim closest to the  wall edge and prepared to leap like a tiger!
I gulped a bundle of nervous what-ifs again and with its animal instincts, it sensed my fear!

In a trice it cat footed back!
Upon the ledge again!

Rain had started falling steadily.
I was worried about my  babies below alone now for a quarter of an hour .
I kept  cajoling the cat to get into my basket.
Tenzing threw me a long drawn dreadful meow.
I had just turned my back in despair when I felt rather than saw it!.

While my rescuing skills were clearly non existent clearly I had hidden cheerleader potential.

Turning I was just in time to see the cat crouch, arch his body in a powerful leap and land softly noiselessly on my balcony !

He had not just cleared the gap but managed half an extra foot in desperation.

Hallelujah!

The brave kitten was now a proud confident cat!
I the cat maker rather like the king makers of yore ..though paving his initiation rites of passage had reduced me to a wreck .
My adventures with Tenzing hopefully over, I trudged back downstairs adoring cat firmly in tow brushing against my finicky feet.

Some kind soul had left it a bowl of milk at the foot of the stairs. Firmly ordering it   to drink I closed my own door on the cat.

For the third and  last time that day!
Thus finally ends my cat story!

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(c) Amrita Valan 2014
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