I wanted milk for my coffee this morning, so I went to the Metro at the corner. In the back of my mind I wondered about Kitty as I walked in the sunshine to keep warm; the temperature dropped over night so the air was cooler than usual.
Kitty, the feral street cat that adopted Dan and I over the winter, plays a larger than expected role in our day to day since she has warmed up to us. It’s partly my fault – I am a sucker for animals – the rest of the blame rests on the shoulders of Kitty herself, for is she is quite adorable.
Yet that cute face belies a deft and deadly predator, surely the result of living on the streets. She is the most capable hunter and she takes joy in the capture and torture of rodents. So far she has caught and killed no less than a half dozen mice in the past two weeks of warm weather. Dan and I dread when she decides to share her catch.
Walking up the stairs, with this is my mind, Dan excitedly tells me of Kitty’s latest morsel. Another poor mouse dangles from the cat’s jaws while Dan extolls the strange chirping sounds made by Kitty, who wants to bring the mouse inside. We keep the door shut. Can’t let that happen again.
I step out onto the balcony. The mouse has buried itself behind the potted basils we have growing for our summer salads. Kitty sits prone to pounce, eyes fixed on the shadows in the shade. I turn my back for a moment to move a chair when Dan shouts ‘It jumped.’ Kitty looks over the edge and makes for the stairs.
The mouse, in a fit of suicidal survival, leapt from our third story balcony to deadly freedom. Unlucky, as Kitty is a very clever hunter, and soon has the mouse in paw and jaw, bringing the poor beast back up.
I know that Kitty wants to share this mouse, she wants me to hunt with her, and she gains immense satisfaction in the collective kill. She is a consummate predator of course, so her behaviour is hard-wired to hunt without prejudice and that she does me a service by sharing in that. I am fully aware of this, but she does not in any way understand that I am also a vegetarian, let alone a mouse eater. I cannot help but feel deep pity and guilt for what I am certain will follow.
I step out onto the balcony. The mouse has buried itself behind the potted basils we have growing for our summer salads. Kitty sits prone to pounce, eyes fixed on the shadows in the shade. I turn my back for a moment to move a chair when Dan shouts ‘It jumped.’ Kitty looks over the edge and makes for the stairs.
The mouse, in a fit of suicidal survival, leapt from our third story balcony to deadly freedom. Unlucky, as Kitty is a very clever hunter, and soon has the mouse in paw and jaw, bringing the poor beast back up.
I know that Kitty wants to share this mouse, she wants me to hunt with her, and she gains immense satisfaction in the collective kill. She is a consummate predator of course, so her behaviour is hard-wired to hunt without prejudice and that she does me a service by sharing in that. I am fully aware of this, but she does not in any way understand that I am also a vegetarian, let alone a mouse eater. I cannot help but feel deep pity and guilt for what I am certain will follow.
The mouse squeaked fear and darted from the tiny tiger’s maw, making for the brick wall. Kitty sat by and watched, unbothered by the flight of the mouse. Then, in what must have been a Herculean feat of rodent strength, that mouse began to climb the wall.
Watching in awe at the determination of this injured creature’s will to live, I sat seeing how the brutal show nature would play out. Of course I feel guilt at not stepping in to put a stop this. I have a very strong sense of Ahimsa. Non-violence is part of why I became a vegetarian, and yet I did nothing.
It was plain to see the pain on the mouse’s face. His struggle to climb in spite of his wounds, of which two visible punctures could be seen on his abdomen. His eyes squeezed tight as he willed his might to pull his battered body up the wall. He had made it nearly a meter up before Kitty had enough. Hopes dashed in the swat of a cat and he fell back to the balcony floor. For a moment he lay on his side, fast breathing, and I see that the poor creature is exhausted. Kitty purrs and rolls over top the mouse in glee. Then with his last drop of adrenaline the mouse sprang over the side of balcony. He falls, but this time, rather than the soft earth, he falls on the hard surface of the shed roof below, three stories down.
I stand up and step down the spiral to see the damage. The unlucky rodent was on his back, forearms splayed out, Christ-like, blowing tiny blood bubbles that froth from his little nose. His neck was at an odd angle astride a metal bar and I am certain his back is broke. I pick him up and I know he is dying. He spasms and his bowels empty mustard yellow. His breaths, rapid and small, the last gasps of life, whisper away on the morning breeze.
Kitty has come down and rubs at my feet and meows. I bring down her prey and she sniffs deep and rolls around in cheer and satisfaction. She bites the mouse for a moment then unceremoniously spits him to the dirt and saunters away, leaving me with the body.
Kitty has come down and rubs at my feet and meows. I bring down her prey and she sniffs deep and rolls around in cheer and satisfaction. She bites the mouse for a moment then unceremoniously spits him to the dirt and saunters away, leaving me with the body.
This small being was in my hand and I felt life leave it. I saw in its eyes the last light and the I could feel in myself the empty weight of death as it came. A shadow we must all fall into, for sure, but it was unsettling, and it has left me scratched.
I know that no fault is borne to Kitty. To deny her instinct is against Nature. She is a hunter, and I respect that about her. To call her cruel would be an injustice, as she does this without malice, it is simply who she is. Yet I cannot but help feel responsible for the mouse’s death. I could have intervened, and I was more than capable of stopping Kitty from her spree, claiming the mouse as my own charge, and freeing it or destroying it as I saw fit – much as flawed Hellenic god might. But I just watched. Does that make me cruel? Am I like a deaf deity to whom prayers fall unanswered?
I admit, I have been taken by the last stand of will that mouse showed against surety. That striving of so meek a mammal has won in me as much honour and respect as any predacious mood offered by his feline dispatcher. While I know I anthropomorphise this morning’s drama, one I am certain plays out daily around our little world, I cannot get at that itch in my mind about the role we humans play in such events on amore global scale. If a day came forcing me to face off between two paths of certain death, how would I choose? How would I carry myself? How hard would I strive? I hope never to answer such questions, but, if my day comes, I can only hope I would have the same tenacious will as that little mouse.
