16:21 - Thursday, Jun. 17, 2004 as least she has food
The cat (whose name, unfortunately, has become Joan Wilder, because Nick was thinking of The Jewel of the Nile when he thought of it and continued to call her that all day, and also, we've both been reading Life of Pi where the tiger's name is Richard Parker, so it just seemed to fit better that anything else) had caught a bird when I came home from class today. The first thing I heard was some godawful squealing noise coming from the basement steps, and it was just beginning to rain. I looked down, sheltered by the protruding edges of my house's roof, and Joan Wilder was pawing around a screaming bird whose legs were broken and whose wings were not broken, but also not functioning fully.
Cats are evil hunters. They play with their food before they eat it, or really even before they kill it. She had incapacitated it enough that she could play with it at her leisure, like playing with a bit of string, for ever et cetera et cetera, until she decided that it was her pleasure to have a meal.
I watched the goings on for maybe ten minutes, during which time I silently sent messages to Joan Wilder to kill the bird quickly so it would stop suffering (and squealing) and Joan Wilder periodically looked up at my face leering over the banister and mewed, as if asking for my approval.
When I turned my head away for one split second she picked up the bird by a wing feather and streaked up the stairs and through my back door WHICH I HAD FUCKING LEFT OPEN. She dropped it on the (hardwood, thank god) floor behind the circle chairs, pawed it, and then looked expectantly up at me. I was not about to have a bird killed on my living room floor, so I picked up a mildly struggling Joan Wilder and deposited her on the back porch, where she pressed her face against the door, tilting her face inquisitively, then began pacing.
My dilemma now is as follows: I have a bird playing dead on my living room floor, and a lazy cat pacing my porch that wants to kill this bird... eventually... but will torture it for hours first, most likely. I can't leave the bird in my house (I talked to the landlord about the cat, and there is a strict 'no pets' rule, plus, I don't like pet birds at all, plus, it's going to die any minute), I can't kill the bird (I have nothing to kill it with and I don't want to interfere with the hunting processes of an animal, which really I already have by putting the cat outside, but fuck if I'm going to, as I said before, have a bird killed on my living room floor), and putting the bird outside with the cat isn't very nice either because I'm carrying it to its doom.
I go to the bird, which is staring at me from its position on its back, and lift it. Its tiny claws curl around my fingers, and its heart is beating probably ten times a second. I open the door, and Joan Wilder puts her front paws on my leg, reaching for the bird. I apologize (to the bird) and set it down gently on the porch, where Joan Wilder attacks (quite halfheartedly).
Then she picks up the bird again in her mouth and walks to the back door, where she sits down and (somehow) mews innocently to be let in, with a flailing and screeching bird in her jaws.
So obviously what she wants to to come in and kill the bird on my living room floor.
But no, she is not going to kill the bird on my living room floor because I'm not that much of a sucker for kitty charm. I pick up the bird, intending to throw it far enough away that Joan Wilder can kill it there, and the bird jumps off my hand and flies frantically towards a tree... but misses, hits it head on the fence, and drops. Joan Wilder sprints after it. I close the door and thie weird spectacle, this fucked-up merge of nature and civilization.
21:04 - Wednesday, Jun. 16, 2004 as yet unnamed
I told a friend of mine in a dream last night: 'Maybe you're alone now, and you've been alone for too long, but when someone finally comes along, they're going to love you so much that neither of you will be able to stand it.' and I hugged him hard around the neck and felt for myself, deep down in my abdomen even, how much this as yet unnamed person was going to love my friend.
18:09 - Monday, Jun. 14, 2004 closed to the storming sky
I went out in the starting thunderstorm to recycle the bottles that have been piling up on my kitchen counter and to put out the tin the baked brie was in in hopes that the coming rain would loosen it and make it cleanable, and a beautiful brown-and-black tortoiseshell-patterned cat came mewing up to me, hiding under my skirt, sitting on my lap and pushing her face into mine. She had no claws and no collar, and my door was open. Obviously a housecat, she ventured in, putting her face into everything; the refrigerator, my roommate's trash can, the embroidery thread laying out on my desk, the fireplace. She was also young enough to jump onto the counter and stick her nose in the recently-turned-off electric stovetop.
It seemed that she had been here before and knew the house, but not what was in it. I want to keep her, but I know she's someone's, someone who cared enough to have her declawed, but not enough to not let a declawed cat outside. She's relaxing on our porch picnic chair now, right paw in the cupholder, eyes closed to the storming sky.
