The Life of Cats

“If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.” Mark Twain

I’m awoken at 5am by the loud roars of cats out in the street outside my bedroom window. I’m not sure if they are fighting or mating, but when I look outside I see Sarah the cat running at full speed away from a jet black cat that I don’t recognise. I’m not sure if the black cat is trying to kill her or have it off with her, but she is running like her life depends on it. At the end of the street she effortlessly vaults up and over a 7ft wall.

Sarah is white and black and has been a regular visitor to our house. She belongs to one of the neighbours. She eats non-stop, sleeps all day, and is as skinny as a rake. Looking at the velocity she was running down the street just now, it’s hardly surprising she is as skinny as she is, she’s half wild.

Sarah is a predator. She is forever killing small creatures. Corpses of pygmi shrews, rather large rats, and birds have appeared by the step at the back of our house, almost as if they were offerings. I really had no idea there were so many rodents around the area, but the amount of them that Sarah presents us with brings to mind the line that we are “never more than six feet from a rat”.

I get up and dress at around 5.30am and go down to the back room to put my shoes on to go for a walk, and that’s when I hear the nocturnal predator miaowing at the door.

I let her in and she straightaway makes for the front room, and so I let her in there and close the door. But she starts crying out to me and I realise she wants something and so I go in and sit down on the armchair and she curls up on my lap. She is breathing rapidly and looks up at me with startled looking emerald eyes with wide black pupils. I cup my hands around her body, her eyes close, her breathing slows, and she nods off to sleep, leaving me to ponder how it is I’ve found myself being manipulated by a cat to not only let her in and lead her to the most comfortable chair in the house, but also to be a heated pillow for her in that chair while she unwinds from her physically demanding nocturnal activities.

I sit there and look at her sleeping for about half an hour, pondering how cute, cuddly and simultaneously vicious such creatures are. And then I remember I was going to put my shoes on and go for a walk before this intruder arrived. I lift her off of my lap, apologetic for disturbing her, and then simultaneously feeling stupid for apologising to a cat. I stand up and gently put her back down in the seat, and she goes right back to sleep while I go in search of the shoes I was meant to put on a half hour previously.

:)