Stray and Cold

A tabby cat walks the bank of a frozen stream, her kittens swinging in her belly. The sky is bright and still, holding its breath until the return of spring. The trees watch her pad through the snow, their pointed peaks whispering to each other in the silent winter air.

***

She knew, even as she bounced along on the floor of the trunk, that this car ride was one of fate. Her kittens roiled in her soft white belly as the car bumped and vibrated down the gravel.

***

Skeleton trees watched a car approach. Look here the pine needles whispered. The flurry of snow took notice and the wind slowed to watch. The vehicle rolled to a stop in front of the army of trees and deposited something small and round on to the gravel. It drove on. The wind and the snow and the cat watched the car continue off into the white distance.

She shook off the snowflakes that had settled on her tabby head and made for the Great Wall of trees beyond the ditch.

Once inside the atmosphere of evergreen, she sat down on the carpet of pine needles and licked the ice from her paws.

My kittens, she thought as she pulled the chunks from between her toes, they will be shocked by the coldness of this world. A chill of fear raced up and down her rounded back; kittens need love and warmth and she appeared to own the only beating heart among the towering trees.