“Cinco? Cinco? There you are. Come here,” she whispered, on her hands,
sideways leaning in through the unlocked dog door as she stuck her head into
the house five doors down from her home on 12th Avenue.
Cinco had been missing for hours at a time—sometimes all
night long and often throughout the daytime over the past two months, missing
meals and making the neighbours suspect in her eyes. But Mary denied feeding him but once as well
as taking him in at night. In spite of
expressing her concern over Cinco’s absence, it appeared this morning, that
Cinco was well acquainted with this home and lived there due to someone in
Mary’s home.
“Meow,” said Cinco, quietly as he walked gently with
familiarity on the insipid grey plaid vinyl kitchen flooring.
Oily, petroleum VOC releasing flooring, she thought matter-of-factly. "Yuck" in her mind, horror in her heart. My
kitty is being exposed to this yuck!!! Horror of horrors!
“Cinco, come here,”
she said more insistently.
“Meow,” as he turned in those allusive cat circles, waving
his tail up in the air—expressing indifference to her pleading.
“Cinco, come here!” This time with insistence and no
patience, forgetting cat language altogether, and with complete ineffectiveness.
“Meowwwwwwww,” as he turned his back and sprung lightly away as if on air between pads and substrate, as cats do, out of her
eyesight from her vantage point—head stuck inside this portal, shoulders held
outside by the door's guillotine-like yoke framing and separating her head from the
rest of her body.
Pushing further forward, she knew she could squeeze through the dog
door and physically locate him….
“Doug!?” a woman’s voice pleaded.
“What are you doing,” he boomed?
“Finding my cat,” she said back, with no apology and with
the utmost sincerity of her mission.
“He’s in your house and he is here due to your feeding and
housing him.”
“Meet me at the front door and I’ll give you Cinco,” he said
in irritation.
“Fine,” came out with relief and equal irritation.
“Mary and I have decided you cannot come on the property any
longer to get Cinco,” he announced when we stood facing one another at proper
height, weight, relationship now that I was standing fully upright sporting a
5’-6” vertical composition to his 6’-0” stance.
“That is fine, she replied back with her end of the
agreement yet to come.
“And you must not feed him or let him in your house any
longer, “ she said with as much certainty and outrage that justified her
recent appearance with her head sticking through his dog door just minutes ago.
“That is our agreement,” he replied.
“I am fine with that,” she said. “This would never have been an issue in the
first place had you respected my wishes.
$600.00 in veterinarian bills and two months of worry and angst later,
we are discussing the respect of my family at this moment.
I appreciate mutual cooperation from now on. Thank you.”
A few days later, looking for Cinco and calling his name, a
part-time neighbor, three houses down, asked if the missing kitty is orange and sports
a collar. “He was meowing insistently at our doorway
late last evening and wanted in, but we didn’t open the door,” she said.
Here we go again,
she thought to herself…..
Kat
29 August 2016
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