| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
|---|
This was when my sister still worked at a pet store, and the humane society would drop off cats to be adopted. No one was expected to take Sheldon. He was rescued from a house with 30+ cats, all heavily abused and in various stages of malnourishment. My sister took him because he was going to be put down. You could see his bones through his skin. The vet said he wouldn't last a week. My mom and sister spent that week feeding him slowly by hand and giving him water through a syringe. After two weeks he was like a totally different cat. But he still wasn't normal. He wouldn't let anyone tough him or pet him for several years. He wouldn't defend himself if the other cats swatted at him. He was lethargic and never ran or played. And most of all, after years of starvation and competition for food with other cats, he didn't know when to stop eating. While other cats eat only when they're hungry and stop when they're full, Sheldon ate each meal like it was his last. Then he would move on to the other cat's food. Then he would usually puke. And then the cycle would continue. He was constantly bingeing. As a result, he got so fat. Not the fattest cat i've ever seen a photo of, but the biggest i've seen IRL. I think at one point he was like 30 lbs, something crazy. Picking him up was a chore. His sympathy eating was out of control. When i visited, i always called him Fatass or Tubby, always causing my sister to scream at me, always reminding her that cat's don't speak english. I answered the phone this morning to someone sobbing. They had to put him down this morning. He had heart disease, obviously from being overweight. So in a way, he died from being too happy and too well cared for. I'm not sad. He was a sick little guy who had a hard life and got to live his final years in a ridiculously loving home. |
it makes me think of a bukowski poem: "History Of One Tough Motherfucker" he came to the door one night wet thin beaten and terrorized a white cross-eyed tailless cat I took him in and fed him and he stayed grew to trust me until a friend drove up the driveway and ran him over I took what was left to a vet who said,"not much chance...give him these pills...his backbone is crushed, but is was crushed before and somehow mended, if he lives he'll never walk, look at these x-rays, he's been shot, look here, the pellets are still there...also, he once had a tail, somebody cut it off..." I took the cat back, it was a hot summer, one of the hottest in decades, I put him on the bathroom floor, gave him water and pills, he wouldn't eat, he wouldn't touch the water, I dipped my finger into it and wet his mouth and I talked to him, I didn't go any- where, I put in a lot of bathroom time and talked to him and gently touched him and he looked back at me with those pale blue crossed eyes and as the days went by he made his first move dragging himself forward by his front legs (the rear ones wouldn't work) he made it to the litter box crawled over and in, it was like the trumpet of possible victory blowing in that bathroom and into the city, I related to that cat-I'd had it bad, not that bad but bad enough one morning he got up, stood up, fell back down and just looked at me. "you can make it," I said to him. he kept trying, getting up falling down, finally he walked a few steps, he was like a drunk, the rear legs just didn't want to do it and he fell again, rested, then got up. you know the rest: now he's better than ever, cross-eyed almost toothless, but the grace is back, and that look in his eyes never left... and now sometimes I'm interviewed, they want to hear about life and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed, shot, runover de-tailed cat and I say,"look, look at this!" but they don't understand, they say something like,"you say you've been influenced by Celine?" "no," I hold the cat up,"by what happens, by things like this, by this, by this!" I shake the cat, hold him up in the smoky and drunken light, he's relaxed he knows... it's then that the interviews end although I am proud sometimes when I see the pictures later and there I am and there is the cat and we are photo- graphed together. he too knows it's bullshit but that somehow it all helps. |
When I first got him he'd follow me everywhere. If I closed the bathroom door he'd yowl and scratch until I let him in. I had a dream in those early days of him following me around. I was in a shop, and the shopkeeper asked me about him. I said, "Oh, Max just follows me everywhere..." He stopped doing that a few years later, but lately he's returned to it. Makes me think the end is coming soon. |
|
Mr Bell is turning 14 this year, and he's still going pretty strong. I think people are under the impression that he's old and decrepit because he has no ears, but I don't even really notice that anymore. He follows me everywhere but then he's always done that. He used to come to the beach with us when we lived in Caspar, sitting on a sand dune with his lip curled until we decided to go home. |
I'm hoping she has a few more years left in her, like Antigone, this cat has been with me for a very long time - I rescued her from the street right after I graduated from college. |
My own dog, Buddy, died this past fall. I don't think if I ever have another pet I'm going to give it a name like "Buddy" because that sort of name only makes it so much worse. My parents had moved several provinces away about 4 years ago and since then I had only seen Buddy for a couple weeks at a time since then. On one side it made it a little easier to let go, I never had to see the days of him unable to jump onto the bed, but when I found out they put him down I was ridiculously destroyed that I didn't get to see him one last time, the reasons why that is being too complicated to get into I'm sad now. |
|
|