Cat Got Your Tongue?

I’m being stalked.  I see her when I pull into the driveway after work.  She thinks I can’t, but she doesn’t quite blend in with the shadows under the fir tree across the street where she sits.

When I raise the shades in the morning, I catch a fleeting glimpse of her dark hair flashing around the corner of the house.  

I awoke in the middle of the night last Tuesday and went down to the kitchen for a drink of water.  I just about shit my pajamas when I looked out of the window to see her glowing, yellow eyes watching me from the roof of the garage.

I’ve seen her wet footprints coming from the neighbor’s yard to my side door.  

She has been leaving presents in the turned-up dirt of my vegetable patch.

She is no ordinary feral cat.  She is not looking for a handout or a warm bed.  She wants something from me.

Our initial encounter was in the wee hours of October 1st.  I had spent the night out with friends and arrived home well after bar time.  A tall fir tree grows at the front of my house, its arms covering the trunk to the ground, a perfect habitat for wild animals.  I see all manner of rabbits, squirrels, birds, and the occasional possum, living their lives among the branches.

On this early morning, as I walked past the tree toward my driveway, I glanced into the subarboreal darkness.  I jumped as a pair of bright, yellow eyes blinked at me.  I felt an upwelling of self-righteous anger.  How dare a feline invade the home of my animal friends?  I imagined dead baby rabbits draped across the cat’s lower jaw, their innocent blood running down her chin, and tiny squirrel bones piling up from her feasts.

I hurried to the garage to look for a weapon.  I would do unthinkable harm to that cat so she would never come back.  I found a hooked cultivator, its metal prongs sharp and ready for action and walked back toward the tree, quietly, slowly, so as not to frighten the cat away.  She would return unless I made it clear she was in mortal danger.  

I approached, and could see her slightly darker outline against the murky light cast by the street lamp next door.  I carefully knelt and slid the cultivator under the tree.  Before I could second guess myself, I swiped at the cat.  One of the prongs must have pierced her side because she emitted a piercing screech of pain, and when I withdrew the weapon, I could see red blood on the metal.

She vanished like a shot, to where I did not know.  I didn’t care as long as she didn’t return.  

A week later she started stalking me.  

I told my friends what I had done and they were horrified.  I defended myself with the argument that I had saved many tiny lives by chasing the cat away.  They were slightly mollified, but I could tell they were upset with me.  I had to admit I felt a bit of guilt when I remembered the sound of pain she made.  But I stood by my slightly inebriated decision.

She no longer waits underneath the tree.  I think she watches from farther away until she knows I’m at home.  When I’m inside she stays close by, observing, waiting.  I started going outside every morning before work.  While I drank my coffee, I would talk to the cat.  I explained why I had to hurt her.  I told her about the animals living in the sanctuary of the tree.  I asked her to find another hunting ground.  On and on I talked, hoping the calm, soothing tone of my voice would pacify her.  When I arrived home in the evening, I would walk around the yard, doing the same.  

I imagine after nearly two weeks of watching me talk to nothing while walking around my property, my neighbors thought I had developed some issues.  I was starting to suspect they were correct.

I never saw her during these excursions, but I knew she was listening, biding.  

October 31st, Halloween, Samhain.  It’s my favorite holiday.  Not because of the schmaltzy blow-up yard decorations, or the giant skeletons engaging in everyday life activities.  I scoffed at people’s black cats and green-faced witches.  I loved the real deal. 

Every year on Halloween I would set places for people I had loved and who had passed.  I would bury apples in the vegetable patch to feed spirits passing though.  For me Halloween is a time to speak to our dead, when the passage between the worlds is thinnest.

This year was no different.  I prepared a meal of pumpkin soup and bread.  I opened a bottle of mead I had purchased for the occasion.  

Years ago my friends had stopped inviting me to their Halloween parties, knowing that I preferred to celebrate alone.  As I sat at the table with my steaming soup and cool glass of mead, I wished I had company.  

I finished my meal then did the washing up, all the while talking to the dead as I talked to the cat.

I was wiping water away from the side of the sink when intuition made me look up.  There she was, sitting on the roof of the garage, watching me.  This time I allowed myself to truly see her.  My eyes took in her medium-length hair, black as night and tinted blue by the light of the moon.  One ear was crooked, likely the result of a fight with another stray.  She was large by cat standards, probably close to eighteen inches tall while sitting.  I looked into her eyes, seeking communication, perhaps seeking redemption.  The gaze she returned was hard.  There was no forgiveness there, no understanding.  I had hurt her and I would suffer the consequences.

I set the cloth aside and backed away from the window.  I had had enough.  It was time to get rid of this cat once and for all.

I owned a revolver, a gift from a relative.  It had belonged to my great-grandfather, a circuit court judge in South Dakota near the end of the nineteenth century.  I’d had it cleaned and assessed and was taught how to handle it safely.  Now, I loaded the chamber with six small rounds, snapped it closed, and went outside.

I moved slowly but surely, walking upright rather than hunched over.  I wanted the cat to know who was in charge here.  I did not see her on top of the garage so I walked into the side yard to wait.  

The air was cool, not cold, and I felt comfortable in my wool sweater.  The hand holding the gun felt sweaty and my heart a bit unsteady.  I had never killed an animal before, not intentionally.  I also knew discharging a firearm in the city was illegal, but my overwrought brain did not care.  I had to finish this.  The cat was going down.

I don’t know how long I stood there before I saw movement near the vegetable patch.  I swung my now stiff arm up and took a wild shot towards the spot where moments before there had been the outline of a cat.  The report echoed off of the houses around me, repeating several times before fading away.  In the tiny, still rational part of my mind, I knew I had limited time before the police arrived.  I moved toward the dark square of dirt where I grew carrots and lettuce, my eyes peeled.  Again, I sensed motion, this time from the hostas growing at the side of the garage.  I fired again.  

Suddenly, the cat burst out of the fading foliage straight towards me.  I raised the gun to fire, but she was faster.  She leapt onto my chest, surprising me enough that I toppled backwards, my breath erupting from my mouth.  Winded, unable to inhale, I lay stunned on the ground.  I felt something heavy moving on my chest.  My wild, panicked eyes found those of the cat.  She gazed back at me, censure and condemnation in her expression.

She shook her head slowly and said, “You should not have hurt me.”  Even if I had not winded myself, I wouldn’t have been able to breathe.  I felt my bladder release, hot urine running down the insides of my legs and onto my backside.

“I cannot allow your action to go unpunished,” the cat continued in her velvety voice.  “And I am tired of listening to you talk and talk while saying nothing.  You have not even apologized for what you did to me.”  Terror seized me and I was certain I would die of fright.  I watched, helpless, as she took a few steps towards my face.  She sat, a smile creeping into the corners of her mouth.  She raised one front leg.  The other came forward and her toes pushed down on my chin, opening my mouth.  With one impossibly long, sharp claw, she reached into my mouth and cut my tongue off at the base.

“That will suffice,” she said, then picked up my tongue in her teeth and jumped daintily onto the ground.  Tail high, she trotted away into the night.