Lonely

I was staring at a pair of shoes. Again.

Scuffed toes, frayed laces, and green canvas. Skinny ankles sprouted upwards into the smallest person who lived in the house. She barely cast a shadow on a sunny day, and I hadn’t even heard the swish of her steps on the grass. She’d sneaked up on my hiding spot. I sighed.

Drops of rain gathered on the edge of the leaves above me then dropped with soft plips onto the ground. A light rain had started when the sun dipped behind a cloud.

My toes and my coat were damp. An icy chill crept along my back with a few trickles of rain. I was hungry and tired. I’d been on lookout for hours.

“Hey, come out,” the owner of the shoes coaxed. “You can sit on the porch and stay dry. Or maybe you’re dry under there?” her voice wavered and trailed upward like a question mark. She’d been trying all week to get me to come out, but I wasn’t going to move any closer.

I tucked my paws closer to my body and hissed. I’d done that before and it’d worked. Sometimes I even arched my back and spit when she tried to lure me out from under the bush at the side of her house.

She wasn’t one of the people I knew. I missed my humans. The ones who lived in the square house down the street. But one day they’d put their belongings in boxes, stacked them high in a truck, and drove away. I still don’t know why. Maybe that’s what humans do when their kittens grow up. They leave them behind.

After the truck’s tires had spit rocks at me, I waited for my people to return. I huddled in the dry corner of the front porch near my mat and empty bowls. When I was hungry, I ate from the bowls left out on nearby porches.

Most of the neighborhood cats didn’t mind, but that orange Tom across the street wouldn’t share. He’d even swiped at me to make me understand! When it was dark, I drank from puddles and hunted small prey. But most of my time was spent waiting.

I was awakened one afternoon when a large truck squealed to a stop in front of the house with a cloud of dirt and rocks. The truck was filled with different people who clomped up and down the steps with boxes. There were two big people who shooed me off the mat — my doormat!

For a few days I kept close to the house by hiding under the bushes with scratchy branches. When I tried to return to my mat, the people came out making shushing sounds and waving their arms. One morning the woman took my bowls away, then she nearly stepped on my tail when I bumped into her legs: I knew I needed to scram.

I’d tried to find a place to wait away from those people, but still close enough to my porch so I would see my people when they returned. I counted three driveways down the sidewalk to a larger house with evergreens clustered at one corner: from underneath these bushes atop a small slope, I could see the road and my square house.

I didn’t know how many days had passed, but when my people left everything had been hot and leafy and green. Now it was cooler at night, and the leaves had started to fall from the trees. Some of the leaves were still holding tight to the branches and they made dappled patterns on the grass and sidewalk when the afternoon sun was brightest.

The person with the green shoes had a small, quiet voice. I glimpsed bits of her through the leaves of my hideout and saw long brown fur on either side of a pointed face with an upside-down smile. I’m pretty sure it’s a girl human.

When I’d first found this house, I’d spied her playing in the yard with other small humans who were loud and moved fast: children. They threw a ball high in the air and laughed a lot—that noise that sounded like a cough but made on purpose. They laughed loudly at the girl as she ran back and forth between them trying to catch the ball.

I heard these same noises today, punctuated with the slam of the front door as they raced in and out of the house. They were like kittens, always moving and squirming and squeaking when someone was too rough.

Maybe this human was the smallest of the litter and couldn’t make loud sounds like the others. She would probably fill out her spindly limbs soon, but she would need to become louder to make the others pay attention.

After bouncing from one foot to the other, the girl tip-toed to the house corner and sat down with her back to the yard on the other side of the house. She was making sniffling noises the way I do when I walk into a dusty cobweb, and it wraps around my snout and tangles my whiskers. But I hadn’t seen many spider webs around this house. . .

I peered out at her from beneath the shrubbery to see if the girl had webs in her hair. No, I didn’t see any.

The girl had started to visit my ‘hiding’ spot each day with a plate with food — some meat or those crunchy bits— and a cup filled with fresh water. The food wasn’t bad and it was a lot easier than hunting moles or squirrels for a meal: sometimes, it just wasn’t worth the chase.

Today the girl slid a cup filled with water and a chipped dish with a lump of meat under the branch closest to me. I made sure no one else was around before creeping to the dish to eat. I was always wary of feet, loud noises, and trucks. The girl sat while I ate, and gradually the sniffling noises stopped.

Last week, I’d try to show her the best food from the yard. After a lot of scrabbling in the dirt one night, I’d caught a plump mole and left it on the steps near the front door.

My mother had taught me and my siblings to hunt by bringing us bits of meat and even a whole, warm mouse once. If I wanted to remember my mother, I squeezed my eyes shut when it was quiet and I could almost feel her scratchy tongue on my fur again.

Maybe, leaving one mole wasn’t enough to teach a child how to hunt. All the girl seemed to catch was metallic-tasting fish. I would leave another meal tonight if I could catch something. I wouldn’t even eat any of it, either, I’d leave the whole thing. And I would drop it close to the door so she would see it when she left the house in the morning.

I dozed off dreaming of moles who didn’t scratch and squeak when I pounced.

———-

Last night there was a storm with heavy rain and flashes of bright light across the sky. The wind was colder than it’d been since spring. I stayed under my bush all night, thankful for the fish in my belly. I’d try hunting for two voles when it got dark, but now I was watching the square house.

I must have dozed off because the sun beamed through clouds and I was warm and comfortable when the shoes appeared again. After a small hand had removed the old dishes, a plate of fresh food and a new cup were pushed beneath the leaves.

The girl appeared with a striped cushion from the big, wooden chairs on the porch and sat down, hard. I heard the loud children making noises in the yard; the girl was making sniffling sounds.

This time the sniffs were louder, and the shoes shook along with the noises. Had something happened? The girl was making unhappy sounds. She reminded me of the ‘baby’ who had visited my humans a few times: it had a bright, red face, and it wailed like it was hurt and flapped its tiny hands wildly. I always ran to hide when I heard the ‘baby’ human arrive.

I knew they didn’t have one of the baby humans at this house. It had been quiet most of the morning, which had made it easier to fall asleep. Maybe the girl was sad because she knew she was bad at hunting. Maybe she was hungry because she had shared her prey with me. Maybe her humans had left her.

“Nobody will play,” she whispered to me. “I’ll sit with you if you won’t run away, too.”

I peeked out at her, being careful to look around for danger. I didn’t hiss or growl. The girl was hugging her knees with spindly arms and she looked hungry. She sounded sad. Lonely.

I felt that way after my people left. I huddled under bushes, slunk alone in shadows, waited for them to return. A few nights ago, I had woken up from a dream that felt so real! My humans were stroking my fur and tickling my tummy the way I’d trained them to because it made them smile and made my tummy purr. Sometimes, I imagined they returned with real meat to share with me again, thick and fresh. They were good hunters.

I stretched my paws in front and behind me, then slowly moved forward. The sun was hot on my dark fur as I crept out from under the bush. I settled myself on the grass next to the shoes and legs and wrapped my tail around my toes. I looked up at the little person’s face, and she stared back with watery eyes.

I meowed at her once, twice. I wanted to let her know that I understood.

“I’m here,” I said. “I’m sad, too.”

The girl reached a slender hand out to me tentatively and let me sniff her fingers. They smelled clean and flowery. She then began to scratch me under the chin, with a few fingers, right where scratching felt the best. I leaned into her palm.

“Okay, kitty, we can be friends,” she said. I didn’t know what that meant, but the voice was gentle. I think she knew what I’d said.

We sat in the sun together with my fur growing warmer and the girl scratching beneath my chin then patting my head and back with long strokes of her hand. I could hear the grass and leaves rustling in the wind and the squirrels chattering in the tree branches above us.

After a long while, I started to purr. It started low in my tummy, then grew fuller and filled my throat. It was loud enough for the girl to hear because she smiled at me.

Maybe it was time for me to adopt a new human. This one needed my help.