Paw-litics of Nature

       Staring intently at the window, Blue was as silent as a stone.  Suddenly, he lifts his paw and places it on the window as if to reach out.  I spy a small, furry, grey figure on our walkway staring back at him with great interest.  It stealthily moves to the bay window, and lifts up its paw to try to make a connection through the glass with Blue.  They are mirror images except for the markings across the other cat’s face. 

     “We call her Funny Face,” Lady Hun whispered gently in Blue’s ear, “She is your mother.”

Blue turns to look at Lady Hun, his furry forehead riddled with wrinkles, so that the characteristic capital letter ‘M’ every tabby has in the center of their foreheads, compresses like bellows of an accordion.  Blue seems shocked by the revelation.  I don’t think He ever fully accepted a couple of very important facts. One, that he was a cat.  And two, that he came into the world like everyone else.  In other words, he was not ordained with special powers or entitled to privileges above any other cat.  Being a house cat, certainly afforded him a safer, more posh life, but it could not change what he was.

      Blue had been sleeping in the same bed as Lady and Lord Hun since he was an abandoned newborn kitten.  Funny Face was his mother.  She had been a feral yard cat at the house, as had been her mother and her grandmother.  Less than a year after Funny Face was born, she gave birth to a litter of five kittens, one of which was Blue.  

        Lord Hun’s gardener had been mowing the lawn when he discovered the kittens.  A blade of grass had got wedged into one of the kitten’s eyes and pus had developed, so the Landscaper brought the kitten to the Huns,who cleaned out the eye and then put the kitten back where it was first discovered.  But, when Funny Face returned to feed her kittens,  and realized their home had been devastated by the lawn mower, she moved them one by one to another, more secure location.  She was so small, it was a struggle to lift and carry those kittens back and forth in her mouth. When it came time to take the last kitten, the chemical smells of the medicine that had been applied to the eye, assaulted her olfactory senses to the point where she could no longer identify him, so he was left behind.

      The Huns had watched as Funny Face diligently relocated all of her kittens, assuming Blue had been carried off as well.  However, hours later when they returned home from food shopping, revealed the truth.  Lady Hun instinctively checked the back yard after hearing a faint, plaintive meowing.   Lo and behold, it was the kitten whose eye they had tended, squirming on it's back, against the freshly cut lawn.  It was evident at that point, that Blue had been left behind. His eyes were still closed and his ears were pinned back as is the case with most kittens, so the first smells he identified with and the first sights he saw was that of Lord and Lady Hun.

The morning's memory was renewed for Blue, at the sight of the paw prints which remained on the window, overlapped with his mother’s.

“I’m going outside,” announced Blue, boldly.

“Why do you want to that?” Pinkie asked, lifting his head from the saucer of milk he was gingerly lapping.

“We’re not allowed!” I reminded Blue.

“WHY are we not we allowed?” snapped Blue.

“Because,” I told him, “The Hun’s don’t want us to go out”.

“What's the worst that can happen?  I was outside in Russia, a whole other country, never mind my own backyard, and it was an exciting experience,” Blue boasted.

“Haven’t you noticed that every time you try to leave this house, the Huns do everything to stop you, and the times you have sneaked out they manage to grab you right back inside?” I told him.

“Yes, but we have so much to be grateful for, and I want to take some food and blankets to the super-storm Sandy victims”.

“That’s a very nice gesture, mate,” said Pinkie patting Blue on the back.  “Why don’t you give your stuff to Clyde to distribute to the victims for you?”

“I want to do it myself!” cried Blue. “Why should Clyde be the only one with the adventures? Besides, I want to reach out to my feline brethren.”

“Oh, so you have finally accepted the fact that you’re a cat?”  I asked. Blue ignored me.

“Wow, what have you got there? That’s quite a spread!” Exclaimed Pinkie, sniffing at all the foodstuffs Blue had gathered into a blanket.  Blue waited patiently by the automatic flap door until Clyde came through it, and out he went. 

“Hey…!” called Clyde after him, “Where do you think you’re going?” Blue dashed away as fast as could, not answering.  Clyde came through the door.  “Where’s he off to?”

“Let him go,” I said. “He’s wanted to get out into the neighborhood since he came back from Russia. He seems to think that he can do some good for his ‘feline brethren’,” I said sarcastically.

“Don’t be catty!” Pinkie disciplined me, “at least his heart’s in the right place. He wants to help the victims of Super-storm Sandy.”

Clyde shook the dust from his fur.  “Well, he'll probably pick up fleas and what's more...why don’t we follow him, get the remote!”

“Got it right here,” chimed in Pinkie, one step ahead of Clyde.

He clicked on the remote and we saw Blue chasing SeaAir-a, and in the process, the foodstuffs getting scattered. SeaAir-a, who is used to surviving outdoors, manages to elude him.  

     Blue follows the food trail back to the house, gathering all in the blanket.  He looks around and proceeds to walk, dragging the blanket sack in his mouth. He has to stop and rest at regular intervals as the sack is heavy.

“Why didn’t he ask for my help?” asked Clyde.

“You know Blue—He's STUBBORN!”

“Now, where is he?” asks Pinkie.

“He’s in Hell Cat’s Toilet” answers Clyde.

     We watch as Blue continues moving down the back streets looking for wayward cats and then he comes to a dead end that leads to the wetlands.  We hear a duck quacking as Blue sniffs the sea air.  The swamp weeds seem to be moving. They separate and a mangy cat appears in the clearing, to face Blue, letting out a low rumbling growl.  “I have food and blankets for the flood victims,” says Blue defensively.  Two more cats appear, looking just as vicious as their Alpha. The Alpha male whistles and two more henchman felines appear behind Blue, hissing.

                                                     To Be Continued…..