Cat Tales

Kitty caught his first mouse today. Down the garden steps he came, staggering with the excitement of it. I couldn’t believe it; a huge mouse between Kitty’s jaws.

He’s nearly two, and what with his one eye and the metal pins in his leg I never thought he’d manage it. I had to check for the blue collar and missing right eye to convince myself that it really was our kitty strutting down the garden with his prize.

The dog knew something was afoot and set upon our highway man and his hostage.

Kitty abandoned mousey to his fate, which would have been medieval coming from a 30+ kilo Setter had I not intervened with much coaxing and wheedling and enticing. I locked the two bloodthirsty marauders in the house and went out to survey the damage.

Mousey was, to my horror, still alive. No visible sign of trauma or trail of blood. I hadn’t noticed the whiteness of mice feet before, nor their semblance to the human hand. In short, I couldn’t deliver the fatal blow. I hoped for stunned and folded him into the leafy undergrowth. Then the waiting. The forays in and out of the undergrowth to check for pulse. The hopes of finding the body to be missing, presumed recovered. The attempts to thwart the highwaymen at my heels every time I ventured out.

It may have been kinder to finish mousey off with a hammer, but my hand baulked at the deed and his passing was, in the end, peaceful at least. I wasn’t there for it, but when I found him unresponsive to touch, back white feet folded over each other, eyes glazed, I buried him under the raised garden shed surrounded by rocks; the ones you’re not supposed to remove from the beach.

I thought grandly of Newgrange passage tomb and portal stones and dolmens as I laid him to rest, and prayed that Kitty wouldn’t do an Indiana and exhume him the following day.