kittydesade | (no subject)

I wish I could rewind time back to this morning, when I was walking out of my house with no nightmares, some rest, and a couple ferals eating breakfast and allowing me to pet them now and again. I got home early because there was that meeting I wanted to go to, which did turn out to be 75% traffic concerns and maybe 20% logistics, and the boy mentioned something about a dead cat by the mulberry tree. I hoped he was kidding all the way through the meeting and right up until I saw a dark lump on the sidewalk as we walked back to the house. But he wasn't kidding. It was a cat, a tabby who'd been hit, I think in the head, by a car, blood splashed all over the street where it happened and pooled under his head on the sidewalk. I think, and the boy thinks, that it was Tiny Bit, one of the ferals we'd been feeding, the twin of the one who lives in our garage in the winter. He was laying down, not sprawled belly up or anything. I don't know if that means he was knocked there or if he dragged himself up towards my house from the street, which can't have been that far, because we give them food and a warm place to sleep and maybe he felt safe there. I hope not. I hope he didn't suffer. We picked him up and took him to our backyard, and there was a huge blood stain under his head. His eyes were all but gone, which, oddly, didn't bother me so much. Cats and crows, I don't know. But we picked him up. he wasn't in rigor anymore, I think that means he'd been dead for a few hours because when the boy picked him up and put him into the bag for transport he flopped a bit. I kept looking for him to start breathing, it sounds weird. But when he was lying on the sidewalk I looked for him to start breathing, but he didn't. So we found at least the least solid ground place to dig a hole, and dug what we could, and buried him. We put cinderblocks on his grave so he wouldn't get dug up again, and I put catnip down because that's what you do.

I keep wondering if he suffered. If he expected some of the nice humans who fed him and patted him to take care of him. Was he scared? Was it quick? I hope it was quick. I hope he didn't know what happened.

Barton's still at the door. Little Bit's running around the backyard, or she was. Not that part of it, the part by the shed where she sometimes sleeps. Every time I see them I have to apologize to them and hope they're not lonely, or looking for him. But I think they might be. Or maybe not, maybe they saw and smelled him and know what happened. I don't know.

Anyway. So, that's my night. And then I ate half a medium pizza and half a Papa John's cookie worth of feelings. And I think I'm all typed out, at least so far. Thanks for reading, if you did.