You are a cat of a different breed.I am indeed.That's when he opened the door of the old station wagon.He threw me into the ditch and brother I can tell you cats don't always land on their feet.Splash.Shit.Really man? In a ditch, Okay. Ditch with water? Creep.That's when I learned to spell survival. Grasshoppers, mice, moles, more grasshoppers. Hey crickets.I lived my whole life within a hundred yards of that old culvert that ran along the highway. The woods.The woods, where I hunted and was hunted. The woods that ended at the top of the only hill I knew.The hill that looked down on a town I would never visit.Lot's of close calls, scrapes with racoons and shot once with a pellet gun. That one took my eye.I forget what caused my back right leg to lock up. The racoon fight? Maybe.The kitten is gone and an old Tom is laying at the hills top. Sun comes here. A good place to die.Nine lives? Never remember using the first one up. Funny. I watch the highway below where the car stops. A grey and white kitten thrown into the ditch. Me? Takeover? No.I finish waking and am an old man. Crippled leg. Bad eyes. The cat is real and climbing out of the culvert.Using the canopy trees as canes I make my way to the kitten. Wet. Too tired too run. I pick it up.Traffic of the big rigs roar pass us. I look at the cat clinging to my chest.It shivers. I imagine the short hard life it will endure.Hugging the cat I walk into the highway. The only thing I can give you pal. Before the world ended I heard the loud blast of the black truck. end
Cats will be around long after we are gone. Many are living their lives out feral like pigs. While I hated it, my high school hunting friends would shoot any cat they saw in the woods claiming that they killed the wild game they hunted. They claimed that excuse for killing small predators as well. Fortunately, that attitude has changed. I never shot any animal that was not in season and food for my table.
Like our understanding of small predators, it takes stories like yours and education to change people's attitudes towards their pets. Pets should be considered intelligent animals that require good care and should not be considered toys or property to be discarded when tired of. My ex-wife acquired a kitten that was half wild and a good mouser while still half grown. There was no way for her to get outside without opening the door for her, so she peed there. She also became pregnant. She was immediately taken to the ASPCA and probably euthanized.
A cat lover, your story moved me. One of my two cats was a condo parking lot stray along with her litter siblings. I'd already had three cats at the time, so my mother was able to kidnap one in a cat carrier to save. Hope has been with me going on twelve years. I often think of just how long the others lived.
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