Went Back to Black Cat

Those of you who came here from my old blog may remember my sad blog entry about the freshly killed cat that I found in the road and moved onto the median.

About a week after I moved it, I happened to be down that road again and saw it still there. I imagined some family looking for their cat not knowing that it was there. How would I feel knowing my cat had been lying on the roadside for a week with hundreds of cars passing by every day? I don't understand why it upset me so much, but I felt like that cat was so vulnerable lying out there, eventually to be rained on, frozen, thawed, and decaying. I imagined the city workers coming by with a shovel and throwing him into the garbage truck and off to a landfill, where no one would ever acknowledge whatever life he had, or whatever importance he had to his family.

I tried not to think about the cat for a while, but another week later, I was at the pet store and saw a sign for a missing cat that definitely looked like it could be the one I saw. It said it had no collar but was micro-chipped. I thought about calling them to tell them about it, but I didn't even know if it was still there. I drove by the spot where I left him, and although there was snow on the ground, I saw something that looked as if it could be a black lump pushing up through the snow. I felt as if I were the only one who knew that cat was there, who cared about him, and that I was some how responsible for what happened to him.

The cat had become an albatross.

I decided to take the cat home and then to a vet to get it's microchip scanned. If there was no chip, I could have it cremated.

That night I dreamt of hundreds of kittens ranging in size from an orange to that of a pea suddenly in my house. I kept wondering how they would all survive without someone stepping on them, and I wanted to gather them all up off the floor.

The next night I found a box, some bags and a piece of cardboard to scoop him. I went to the spot and found him there. I knew he might not look very good, and I had an image of what he might look like. He was just where I left him, but mostly frozen and stiff. His fur and body were as nice as before. I had to firmly pry him from the frozen grass as cars whizzed by. Unfortunately, his eyes had become very gruesome looking, and I had to look away from his face. He would no longer be identifiable to anyone at this point; I'm glad I removed him. I would not want someone to see their cat looking like that.

I put him in the box head down, so that I would not have to see his face, but then his legs were sticking up out of the box. I put the garbage bags over him best I could and ran back to the car. I left him on the passenger's side overnight where he would stay cold. I came home to my two, live, black cats, and I almost felt guilty that I could enjoy them. They were so full of life, but then I would look at their faces, and superimpose on to them the face of the deceased cat, with a stiff, frozen body. Then I imagined a human looking like that.

After I awoke this morning, I remembered a dream. A lady had been hit by a car, and they just left her in the road. Some little cones were around her, but cars had to slow down and carefully drive around her. In the dream, I was disturbed by this and hoping the ambulance would come and take her away.

When I went to the car, I dreading seeing him again. At first I only saw his black little paws sticking up. I went to adjust the bag again, and got a glimpse of his head, with his jaw stiffly open showing his teeth and one of his awful looking eyes. I quickly looked away. At the vet they waited for me to remove him in the back, but I couldn't see him again. They scanned him while I looked away and I heard a beep. I thought they had found one, but they hadn't. I asked them to see if it was male or female. It was male. He will be cremated, but I won't take the ashes. I finally felt like it was done. He was "safe".

Something about this cat stirred up a lot of powerful and confusing emotions for me. When I first saw him he looked like a normal cat, so it was hard not to worry about him. When I returned, it was like a reality check. He was frozen with a grotesque and morbid face. He wasn't a cat anymore, just the remainder of what was. This body had no needs, this body could not be hurt, this body was not in pain. The only thing left to do was what I could for the living, and one of those living is me.