A Kitty Cat

A KITTY CAT

MY NARRATIVE:

I have created 3 stories that express what it's like to own a cat. It's the animal that I would choose if I chose to own a pet.

In my religion, it's not lawful to have a dog except as a guard dog, or for hunting. And a fish isn't something that one can bond with much; and I wonder what they feel like being in such a small space. And I don't feel that comfortable caging a bird.

A cat is the perfect pet for me. They are so precious, so cuddley, so friendly. I don't own a cat at this time. But I know it's a great experience.........

MY KITTY CAT:

A, curly haired, red headed, boy sat at a desk in his room. It was a weekday; and the table was covered with school books, and notebooks. He hovered over a piece of paper with his name, Robert Lawrence, written at the top of it, a pencil in his hand as he scribbled down answers to math problems. As he, quietly, studied and did his work, a fluffy, white, cat hopped up onto the desk.

"Hi, Pearl," the boy greeted, rubbing his hand over the cat's fur. She purred in delight.

"Dinnertime!" his mother shouted from downstairs.

The boy closed his books and rushed downstairs. He would have dinner and then come back to finish his work. He carried Pearl downstairs with him.

Pearl was always fed before Robert and his family had dinner. Still, Pearl would come into the kitchen and rub up against his leg to get food from his plate. He'd always give her bits and pieces of his food.

That night in his bed, Pearl lay beside him as always. Nighttime was a time of bonding between the two of them. He ran his hand through her fur as she twisted and turned in delight. Sometimes, their eyes met; and, once, when they did, he lowered his head to touch his nose to hers.

Another special time of bonding was when Robert would take Pearl outside to play. Sometimes, she would climb a tree and he would follow. Other times, he would toss a ball around and watch her chase it. And, other times, Robert would tease her with a spool of yarn which he would hold out of her reach and watch her paw at the air, standing on her hind legs, trying to reach it.

No matter what friends came into Roberts life, he knew he would never have another friend like Pearl.

BACK TO MY NARRATIVE:

A cat is one of those creatures that tend to show unconditional love. Their energy effects your body and spirit as you touch them, rub your hands over their fur, and hold them. When you look into their eyes as they look back at you, it produces feelings of love and affection.

The feelings and satisfaction you get from catering to their needs as they pay you back with so much love and tenderness is unmatched by anything else in life. Caring for a pet like a cat has a therapeutic effect so real that having such a pet as a cat is recommended by doctors.....

LOVE IS SHOCKING:

Richard Braxton sat in his car just watching as Stacy Truman, his wife of eleven years, walked out of a restaurant hugging and kissing another man. He'd been at the restaurant for hours. Earlier he'd been sitting inside watching as she'd laughed and flirted with this man in front of, maybe, twenty or thirty people. No tears came to his eyes. He'd cried a many times over his cheating wife. By now, he was too immune to this.

Back home, he would still ask her where she was just to see what she'd say.

"I just stopped by my friend Macy's house. She's going through something with her husband and needed my company. I was there for hours."

"So, if I call Macy, she'll tell me that's where you were, right?"

"What kind of relationship do we have that you're going to call and check up on me? Aren't you supposed to be trusting me?"

"I tried that."

As Richard grabbed the phone, Stacy screamed and shouted her pleas and her excuses why he shouldn't be calling her friend, grabbing at his arm as if she could stop him. When he called Macy and got the answer he knew he would, that Stacy had been nowhere near Macy's house, Stacy had lots of excuses; but Richard was far from ready to listen. He turned and went up the stairs to their bedroom where he closed the door in her face locking it behind him.

All showered up, dressed, and ready for bed, Richard sat up under the covers in his bed thinking about all the things about Stacy that caused problems in their relationship.

Stacy didn't seem to know how to keep house. So, unless he hired a maid, or cleaned up, himself, the house would be a pigsty. She didn't cook. And she was costly. It cost him thousands of dollars every month to keep her. The money went towards her nails, her hair, outfits, shoes, jewelry. Then there was the money he had to spend on a therapist who wondered why he was with her in the first place. The only reply he ever had was beauty, sex, and the Beauty and the Beast complex.

Richard was a very successful, well educated, and experienced medical doctor. He was pretty attractive. He had a great personality, and a great heart. So, every one of his family members, every friend he had, and every person he met on the street wondered why he stayed with Stacy.

Richard owned a private medical facility in a little neighborhood across town. Most of his patients lived there. And his building sat amidst over a hundred residential houses, or more, distinguishable by the glass doors and windows with letters and numbers upon them that told the hours of the building, the building name, and other important information.

Every day that Richard passed through the neighborhood, he noticed a black cat that wandered here and there through the area. But he never paid much attention to it. However, when he opened the doors of his medical building, one day, with his hands and arms filled with things concerning his work, the cat rushed in past him. With so many things in one arm and the door in his other, he was powerless to stop the cat at the door.

The cat had seen him many times before. This time, he must have decided to follow him. Richard hurried inside the building and dropped his things on the desk where his receptionist sat. Then he rushed after the cat.

His receptionist, Sheila, had not seen the cat from where she sat behind the desk and stood to see why Richard was stooped over rushing past. When she saw the cat, she, immediately, rose to help Richard. That was not the last time that the cat followed Richard. After that incident, it followed him every day until one day he decided to feed it and give it a name. He named it Thomas.

Richard fed Thomas off and on for weeks. It was one day when Thomas rubbed up against his leg as he was unlocking the door of his office that he decided to let him in the building. He soon found himself buying a litter box, cat food, and cat toys. Sometimes, alone in his office, Richard took a spool of yarn, or some other object, or toy and played with Thomas. Soon, everyone who came to the building regularly knew Thomas. Then, one day, Richard decided to take Thomas home.

"Are you crazy? That cat's not going to do anything but poop everywhere, tear up the furniture, and leave dead things all over the place!" Stacy protested.

Richard was mostly uninterested in her opinion; and he never even looked at her as he was putting Thomas' things away in the house and as she followed him around with her complaints. "He's not going to poop anywhere as long as the litter box isn't left full; and he doesn't leave dead things everywhere."

"How do you know that? How long have you had this cat?"

"We've been taking care of him at my office for, around, three months, now."

Richard never left Thomas home never wanting him to be alone with Stacy; so, he, normally, brought him to work.

Sheila, the receptionist, was minorly concerned. "Is everything alright at home with you, Dr. Braxton?"

"Sure. Why?"

"Because, you keep bringing your pet to work."

"Didn't I find him at work?"

"Sure. But I thought once you took him home, you'd keep him home. And I notice that you spend so much time with him. You seem disturbed about something, too."

Richard was disturbed. Since he got his cat, he wasn't spending time with his wife much, nor did he think about her much; and he wondered if he would have even noticed that about himself much if she wasn't complaining so much about it.

One day, at work and after hours, when every patient, his assistant, and Sheila was gone, the phone rang on his desk. He answered it. "Hello."

"I'm leaving you, Richard. I found another man. His name is Ralph Patterson; and he notices me, spends time with me; and no dumb cat can come between us."

Richard sat back in his chair; and for an hour he just sat still in the same position and thinking. Then, suddenly, he developed a headache. His stomach began to turn. He rushed to the restroom. Standing over the toilet, he threw up. He rose up and walked over to the sink to wash his face. As he dried the water from his face, he found that the moisture of his tears remained.

Richard made an appointment to see his therapist immediately after Stacy left him.

"I can't believe it wasn't you leaving her. Mr. Braxton, we need to think long and hard about what would cause you to let a woman like that be the first to leave the relationship. And what's upsetting you so much about her being gone."

"I don't understand. I just couldn't conscentrate on her once I got the cat. I just don't get it. The cat came first. Why wasn't she important to me anymore?" Richard responded, staring up at the wall from where he lay on his therapists couch.

"Why should someone like her have been important to you in the first place?"

"No matter what she did to me. I can't stand not caring. And there was just no feeling. After the call, when she told me she was leaving, I just couldn't get myself to care."

"Well, now, I think we're getting somewhere, here. You're upset that, after you got the cat, you no longer cared for her. A little time with a cat stopped you from depending on her. It catered to your emotional needs giving you the strength to let her go; and you're not happy with that. But bonding with pets is very therapeutic. Getting a pet has been recommended by doctors to patients that have emotional problems like depression and anxiety. Richard, you should be happy about this. Why aren't you happy?"

"Because, I didn't understand. But, now, I, finally, do. You've made it very clear to me. This cat was a part of my fate; and my fate was to, eventually, be happy. Thanks for your advice, Doc."

BACK TO MY NARRATIVE:

One characteristic of a cat is being a protector. There have been many cases where an animal has saved the life of a human being. Animals are some of the greatest heroes. Aside from the unconditional love a cat shows us, they are also creatures that guard and protect...........

LILY

Cool breezes blew back and forth; and a grey but rainless sky covered the earth and a little wooden house sitting before a grassy plain. At the end of the plain was a wood where the trees blew back and forth with the wind.

Ten year old Elizabeth poked the stick in her hand back and forth towards the ground as she walked through the wood. The air was so relaxing especially with the breezes; but, no matter how the weather was, Elizabeth loved to walk through the wood. There was so much to do, things to find, and so much that put an imagination to good use. This time, she heard a soft purring sound coming from behind a tree to her left. She made her way over to find a lovely grey cat. She grabbed it and rushed home.

Elizabeth did not see the man she passed by just as she hadn't seen his shadow nearby as he'd watched her play with her stick.

"I don't know," said Elizabeth's mother, Caroline, who was standing over a hot stove topped by a pot of gumbo, a pan of boiling broccoli, and a pot of sweet potatoes. The wind blew back and forth through the kitchen window tossing the flowery curtains here and there. Then, suddenly, the sound of thunder cut through the air. The grey sky's promise of rain was finally being proven truthful as drops of rain began to descend from the sky. And Caroline could feel light moisture dropping onto her skin. She walked over and shut the window.

"Oh, Mom, please!" Elizabeth pleaded.

"Wait until your father comes home and ask him. If he says you can keep the cat then, I'll agree."

Elizabeth's father, Ronald, took just a little persuading as he lay back with his feet propped up on the foldout couch in the livingroom. The room was golden from the light of a lamp that sat upon it's stand. The lamp had made the room bright enough for Caroline, on the couch to the right of Ronald, to work on the sweater she was knitting for Elizabeth. And it was bright enough so that Elizabeth could see her father as she sat on the carpet floor pleading.

"Please, Daddy! I know I can take care of Lily. Me and mom discovered that she's a female; and I already named her Lily."

"Taking care of a cat is a big responsibility. Maybe, we should start you off with a gold fish. I'll pick one up for you tomorrow after work."

"No, Daddy! I want to keep Lily. I've already given her a name. I, already, love her so much! Please, let me keep her."

A double glass door that was behind the livingroom couch where Caroline sat, exposed the pouring rain and then, suddenly, the image of a man. Ronald only saw a shadow which made him sit up, abruptly, glancing in the direction of the doors; but the man was gone quicker than his shadow; and, so, Ronald never knew the man had ever been there.

Thinking that it must just be his imagination, Ronald descended back onto the comfort of his couch. "Alright, Honey. Here's what I think we'll do. We'll let you keep the cat for a while and see how things work out. Then, we'll make a choice from there."

"Yay!" Elizabeth hopped up from where she'd been sitting to rush over and throw her arms around her father.

The little wooden house sat in the middle of the plain beneath a dark starry sky. Inside of it, a silver light was the only one that struggled to light up the house. Though it struggled to climb the stairs, it could reach no further than the bottom steps. It made it's way through a hall and as a dim light in the kitchen and diningroom. And it could be seen barely by the front door. If you followed it through the halls and into the livingroom, there you would find it's source - the inside of a, flat screen, television which lit up a livingroom area and was the only reason that anyone could see Caroline sitting on the couch with her husband's head upon her lap as they watched a cowboy movie, and Elizabeth sitting on the floor just beneath them with Lily, completely, disinterested in the movie.

Lily lay, belly up, as Elizabeth rubbed her tummy. Her, green, round, feline, eyes gazed up at Elizabeth surrounded by her, soft, grey, fur. The bonding that came from the eye contact and the energy of the feline's spirit made Elizabeth seem to fall in love with Lily all over again like it could be done more than once without her ever falling out of love with the cat. And she had fallen in love with the cat many times. Luckily, after a month of having the cat she had proven to her father that she was responsible enough to keep her; though, eventually, the whole family took care of Lily. Now, Lily belonged to Elizabeth and her family.

A profound comfort filled the room and the hearts of all it's occupants. An, occasional, sigh of relaxation escaped Elizabeth's breath. No one saw the man peeping through the glass doors behind the couch.

One of the most disturbing thoughts about owning a cat is the idea of cat poop being found here and there on the floor, carpets, and furniture; but what Caroline, her husband, and Lily had found out was that as long as they left a clean litter box on the floor, Lily knew right where to do her business. That was one of the things that impressed Caroline most about having the cat. She seemed clean and considerate.

The cat appeared in the kitchen door as Caroline sipped on some tea thinking about the pleasures she'd experienced since the cat had come into her and her family's lives. She watched the cat come her way with eyes looking directly into hers, and it put a feeling of affection in her heart which got stronger when the cat rubbed up against her legs.

"Hey. Hi, Sweetie. You must be looking for something to eat. Let's see what we have here," she said, as she reached down and ran her hand through the cat's fur.

Stuffed with two pieces of bologna, Lily made her way to the front door and outside the house. She had, unmistakeably, heard the sound of Ronald's voice which meant he was there and she would take advantage of his presence.

She found Ronald sitting on a bench outside the house and picking his teeth with a toothpick as he stared out over the grassy plain. It was time for some bonding with this member of her new family. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lily. He grabbed her up and began petting her. He enjoyed the sound of her purring and the tenderness of her body that sent feelings of affection all through him. Then she clawed her way up towards his face to meet his eyes with hers, nearly touching her nose to his. He held her towards him meeting her eyes with his. "That's a good girl," he said, smiling with both his mouth and his eyes and petting her.

A bright, shiny, sun shined through a white rimmed window turning golden a room designed with pink walls, and, lovely, childrens' paintings. The pink room was complemented by white dressers, bookshelves, and doors, and a bed with white rims. The sun's golden layer changed the color of a pink blanket that covered Elizabeth's body on the bed. Lily lay curled up in the middle of it, the new purple collar wrapped around her neck and her body covering the golden pendant that hung from it which had her name and the name of her owners engraved upon it.

Elizabeth's eyes popped open. Her arm rose to her face to shield them from the sunlight. Suddenly, a thought sent her popping up in bed. That same thought sent her rushing to the bathroom to prepare for the day. Today, was the first day of the weekend. Today, Elizabeth would be going into the woods with Lily.

Today, the wood was bright due to the light and color of the sun. There was no rain; and the earth was dry. There was no mud to get onto the spool of yarn Elizabeth threw back and forth. She never tired of watching Lily go chasing after the yarn. And, sometimes, she'd hold the yarn up out of the cat's reach and watch her stand on her hind legs clawing at the air trying to reach it.

As she watched the cat, she felt so much love and happiness. Everything Lily did was so adorable, so precious, and what made Elizabeth fall deeper and deeper in love with her.

Putting the spool of yarn away, Elizabeth lead Lily deeper into the wood for some venturing. With the cat by her side, it was going to be even more fun. Maybe, the cat would find things she would never find. And it would be like going hunting. Either way it went, things were far more interesting with the cat around.

No shadow lay anywhere near Elizabeth this time when the man who'd been watching her before watched her again. And, in a split second, she remembered a cave that she always loved to explore. She decided to go there with her new feline friend. The man watching her made sure that his footsteps made no sound as he followed her.

It was at the cave that he revealed himself. The inside of the cave was dark. It got darker the further one went in. As Elizabeth searched a backpack she'd brought with her for a flashlight, she heard the voice of the man.

"Hi, Elizabeth. How are you doing?"

Elizabeth turned to find a dingy looking, dusty, man at the mouth of the cave. She felt an energy that filled the space around them that was very uncomfortable. Her heart began to beat harder and faster. She could tell she was in danger. And Lily could too. Lily walked up to the man and began to hiss like she could protect Elizabeth and scare him off.

"You know, I see you all the time. I've been trying to work up the courage to approach you. Can I talk to you? I'd like to get to know you."

In the midst of her fear, Elizabeth found her voice and the right words to say, "I'm not allowed to talk to strangers. I need to go home."

"I'm not a stranger, Elizabeth. See how I know your name. I'm a distant relative of your mother's, a cousin. But your grandmother stopped talking to my family. And she didn't tell her kids about us. And I just want to get to know you. Then you can take me home. We can tell your mom how you found me out here. I've been looking for your mom for a long time. I think if you tell her about what a good person I am, she'll want to get to know me. But, first, you have to get to know me."

Elizabeth wasn't buying it. Her heart was still racing; she was beginning to sweat. "No. I want to go home. Please."

"Not yet, Honey. I'm really serious about talking to you. And I'm your adult cousin. I, actually, am an authority to you. Do you know what that is?" The man's voice was harder, strict, threatening when he said those words.

"No!" Elizabeth dashed out hoping to beat her fear, a fear that might make her submit. And then, perhaps, she could make it home before the man could get to her and do whatever he was planning to do. But, as she tried to run past him, he caught her with his arm.

Lily was still hissing at the stranger still hoping to scare him off.

Elizabeth screamed and tried to fight her way free from the man's clutch. The man twisted her around aggressively. "Don't be a bad little girl, Elizabeth, or big cousin will have to spank you!"

Suddenly, Lily thought of a plan. She climbed to the top of the opening of the cave and then jumped at the man's face. She clawed and bit him until he managed to toss her off of him. It gave Elizabeth a chance to get away and run. Lily hurried off towards her with the man chasing after them both. Once they got close enough to the open plain, the man stopped running. Elizabeth ran yelling for her mother. Lily had passed her by on her way to reach the house to get help just in case Elizabeth didn't make it.

That morning officers searched the wood looking for the strange man that Elizabeth had described. After finding him, they found that he had a police record and was a child molester. Ronald arrived home to the news about Elizabeth's experience; and the whole family gathered around Lily, petting her, and expressing their appreciation for her heroic act. They wondered where they would all be without her.

THE END