The Smitten Kitten and Other Cat Tales
I like where I work. It’s this really big comfortable
house. Its floors are wooden so when you’re wearing boots, it will make
this really nice clunking sound as when horse is grazing by. Just to give you
an idea of how homey it is, it’s probably the only office I know who has been
housing a cat who has been there longer than any of us working there now. Her
name is Bianca or “Biancat.” She’s this white demanding heiress who would sit
with us during lunch time in the patio, demanding to be fed. They wanted to give
her up because she kept pooping in the libraries. It was an agenda in the staff
meeting. “That’s nothing,” one of my officemates replied. Two years ago, she
related, an entire board resolution and overall staff meeting was dedicated to
this dear feline. To keep her or not to keep her was the hot debate. “They were
citing human (or in this case animal) rights, and Zen Buddhism as frameworks.
That Isis was her home. The injustice naman daw, etc.etc. Crying was involved. Haay. Feminist Orgs
talaga. ”
Anyway, this year, in the absence of any cat lovers in the
permanent staff, no one objected to letting Biancat go. "Your days are numbered, Biancat. " She probably knew
what we were talking about, as she would look at us whenever her name was mentioned with
this knowing, arrogant look that seemed to say, “Hah. Tingnan natin.”
Anyway, this time, the board agreed
to give her up, so long as after one month, if she’s unhappy with her new home, she
gets to come back. “And how,” they
asked, “would we manage to do that? Focused Group Discussion? Key Informant
Interviews?” My officemates quipped, referring to
Isis time and tested data gathering methodologies. Well, sometimes you just know. Cat
intuition.
Anyway, Biancats supposed adopter didn’t show up so she’s
still with us, demanding as ever. She must have bewitched them. Cats they say,
could smell their home anyway, and I’m sure Biancat, the survivor that she is, would be back
in the office in no time if they tried to put her somewhere else.
I’ve been thinking of cats lately. I’ve been writing a
children’s story on cats. It’s written from the point of
view of the kitten. And I swear to god, when I write it, I get very very
sleepy. As in how like baby kittens must feel, justifying all those cat naps.
Anyway, when I got out of my car when I got home kanina, it
was raining really hard. And there was this cute little orange kitten crying.
And I swear to god, she walked towards me. So of course, I put her in a
sheltered place so she wouldn’t get wet.
But when I came back to give her milk (I fed her from a
dropper), she wouldn’t take it—although I’m guessing she must be starving. She preferred
my hand.
This reminds me of an
experiment about this baby monkey made to choose between a milk dispenser, and
a totally useless but soft stuffed monkey. Surrogate mother or food? And the baby
monkey just kept freaking choosing the useless surrogate monkey.
Which just goes to show. Between being fed and full and
having love, we’d choose love. Even if it’s from a static stuffed animal?! Hmm.
Are we really that much smarter than
monkeys? “Happiness is so rare the mind would turn summersaults just to keep
it.”
Anyway, so this stupid little kitten kept licking my palms
even though I kept offering her milk. Tss. Silly creature.
And of course, if you know me, you’d know
I snuck her in my room and that she’s in my lap even as I write this. Even though
the penalty for having pets in this house is death. Or so my mom overreacts.
Hey,
its for research! And only ‘til I get her adopted!
__________________________________________
[Smite: verb. smitten. Wound, afflict, affect strongly
especially with love and fear]
The Smitten Kitten
(The attempt at a children’s story… not finished yet…)
Once upon a time there was a smitten kitten in a basket, and
because she was still blind, she stuck to the other furry creatures that were
making the same noise as she is. “Meow, meow, meow.” They cried. And all of a
sudden a great soothing wetness would envelope their backs, as it was their mother
giving them a nice warm tongue bath.
Soon, from the dark, the smitten kitten got to see colors
and shapes. Slowly she learned to look at the places around her. The world
became an awe inspiring but fearful place. It’s so huge, said the smitten
kitten. She was afraid to take the first step out of the basket, for after one
step must come another, and another, and soon she would not know where she was.
But slowly the smitten kitten felt a rumbling from her
tummy. Growwl..Grr.Grr. She was getting hungry and so she started to cry to
look for the bigger version of her that was her mommy. Meow, meow, meow. And soon
after, sure enough, there was with her big giant yellow eyes, peering at the
smitten kitten.
The smitten kitten started to search for the mommy’s tummy, finding
it to be warm and soft, and she found buttons there, buttons that give you milk
when you latch onto it. The milk was a gentle and caressing relief from the
grumbling of the hole in the smitten kittens stomach, a sweet, lulling
sensation started to fill her and soon she was asleep.
When the smitten kitten woke up, a hand was holding her and
big giant alien eyes were staring back at her. “Bobby, put that down! Be
careful with it!” Said a voice.
Bobby, the 7 year old owner of the house where smitten
kittens basket lay had just discovered the smitten kitten.
“Aw mommy, its so cute! Look Turnpike gave birth already! It’s
so tiny and small!”
“All the more to be gentle with it,” the mother said.
“I will, I will,” Bobby said.
But the loud glaring and excited voices made the smitten
kitten anxious. She wanted the familiar sound of her mother’s own purring.
Soon, the hand was touching her whole body again. She did
not know where she was. She was in a big gigantic room full of colorful toys
–bears, engines, trains and airplanes. None of it seemed to appeal to her as
she was afraid.
She started crying a very loud cry. Meow. Meow, Meow. Which
in human language actually translated to mommy, mommy, mommy.
Her mommy came and bit her in the back, carrying her off. It
was then that she started to see the beauty of the room. She saw the colors and
the landscape. She saw the book shelves and the drums. And she so desperately
wanted to play with a piece of revolving rainbow colored flower.
Her mother let her down and she did. She twisted the coils
of the flower, made the keys of the piano sound by steeping on them and went
inside a hole with many colorful balls inside, and smelled a soft big chewy jelly thing with was
color blue and tasted sweet.
The smitten kitten was truly amazed at the world around her.
She even rode a car which had wheels on it. There were weird looking robots
moving around on their own, and she stared at a great still dog for a very long time. It was
lifelike but it was in a perpetual smile and its eyes were beady.
After all the roaming around, the smitten kitten looked
around again for its mommy. She couldn’t find her anywhere again. So the
smitten kitten hid in the boxes and watched the big world outside. All of a
sudden, it started to rain! The smitten kitten grew afraid. A light started to
rip the sky in two and the sky must has been angry at being scratched, for it
made a rumbling sound and grew very dark. The smitten kitten started crying out
for its mommy even louder. She looked and looked and she saw a door, she went
through it and she got wet. Cars were passing by and they were very big and
mean and careless indeed. The smitten kitten was growing helpless. Aside from
being lost, she was also very afraid.
At last, a hand came out to scoop her. “There you are! What
are you doing here?” And the hand reunited her to the bigger version of her who
swooped in over her, until soon enough she was soothed by the milk in her mouth again. The smitten kitten forgot everything that ever worried her. She was home.
Dani! First time I stumbled upon your blog - rich and insightful writing.
Manny
September 20, 2006