While you are sleeping, snug and comfy in your beds, dreams floating round in your head, do you know what your cat is doing at that wee hour, when moon has risen high, wind has stilled, leaving the air thickly perfumed with night flowers?
The giant moth hit the window screen, startling Necco from her dozing on the back of the sofa, at the close of twilight. The sofa was in it's summer position under the open, living room window; the moth's sudden appearance caused the pale tortoise shell cat to sink all four sets of her claws into the cotton throw, raising the hair along her spine from the back of her neck to the tip of her tail. In an attempt to get at the lamp's light inside the room, the moth fluttered against the screen again, but this time Necco was alert and pounced upon the screen, nearly knocking it from its framing. Last summer Necco had popped a screen from the bedroom during the day and scared the living daylights out of her guardian, and herself. It wasn't a long way to the ground; living on the ground floor, so flying out the window wouldn't have caused her any harm, unless you think about her dignity, and the fact that suddenly being outside in a world she'd only viewed through the window screens, would really be a terrifying thing for a cat such as herself.
Her guardians immediately secured all the window screens after that, perchance Necco should again, accidentally hit the screen too hard while after a bug, or in one of her wound up, fast-as-a-race-car, window-to-window midnight sorties. Spazzing out her male guardian called it. Racing from the front room windows to the back room windows, often with only one bounce onto and off of the bed, hitting the bedroom windowsill with perfect precision. Well, that's what cats do best, Necco had protested, after her guardian had once scolded her about it in the middle of the night. It’s a form of exercise that keeps my muscles toned, my claws sharp, and my senses honed, she'd complained to him. Like any human could understand her feline language. She couldn't exactly understand the human form of speech either, but she was a very bright cat and could figure things out pretty fast. She'd been in a human environment since she'd left her mother's side at five weeks old. More than three years now. So she's had a lot of practice at learning what humans had to say.
The moth rattled its wings against the screen again, bringing a sudden, swift, paw strike so hard that it was knocked from the screen onto the lawn below. The longest of the summer days had come and gone, almost a month ago now; hastening the darkness at an earlier hour; hastening the retirement for the night for her elder guardians. Soon they'd be asleep and snoring in rhythmic sighs and snorts. Soon the moon would be high and it would be time for Thorny to bring her, and all the other apartment cats in building four of the Rainbow Estates Senior Village, the latest gossip and happenings—the news.
Because it had been quite stormy out for the past three nights and the windows had to be closed to keep the rain out, Thorny hadn't come to visit. Necco wandered from window to window anyway, but he never showed. The rains had ceased around noon today and even though the breeze was still a bit cool for older folks, Necco's guardians had left all their windows open. They said it was ideal sleeping weather.
A lot had been going on in the little Village since Thorny's last visit, two apartments had been vacated, re-cleaned and received two new sets of tenants. Just before the rains came, Necco was sure she saw a cat carrier being unloaded from the moving truck. She was anxious to know about the new cat in the Village.
The night deepened, her guardian's soft snoring sounds filled her ears as she swiveled them this way and that, tuning out the mundane apartment sounds so that she could hear her friend approaching. The breeze had stilled, the harmonized voices of the crickets and frogs living in the ditches at the properties edge, echoed in the quiet air.
Necco heard the familiar thalump of thickly padded paws landing on the windowsill above her. Markus had awakened from his nap. He slept on the pillow next to his elder guardian's, head. Mo, short for Molina, a tall thin, silver headed lady that had been widowed for nearly thirty years, and only recently, in the past six months, moved into the Village. Necco figured by the way she went and up and down those wicked stairs that she was probably the most agile human in all of the four buildings in the complex. "Markus?" Necco pressed her face and whiskers against the screen, and whispered into the still night. "It's about time you got up. Thorny should be here any minute."
Markus yawned, stretched, then settled his butt on the hard surface of the windowsill before he spoke to Necco. "Yeah, I reckon he's got a lot to tell us tonight." Now, two pairs of ears studied the sounds of the night. The familiar croak of Frog, the orange tabby with the damaged vocal cords, shattered the stillness. "Hey over there, Markus? Necco?" he called. "Sure is good to have these window open again. Thought that dab burned rain would never quit. I guess Thorny's comin' tonight?"
Before Necco or Markus could answer, all three sighted the charcoal and black striped tom marching across the lighted parking lot. He jumped onto the hood of Necco's guardian's car and greeted all three. After a few niceties about the rain and how he'd stayed indoors the past three stormy nights—he was no fool. He had a whole neighborhood of warm, toasty homes to choose from. A gift he'd said. He was so charming and irresistible that all the neighbors vied for his attention. So to please them all, he spent equal amounts of time in each home, enjoying every last morsel of their finest cat dishes.
Necco couldn't stand it. Things had been too quiet in their little senior village since the ambulance took away the little dog, known only as the dog to all the cats in building four, and his guardian, at daybreak, over a week ago. Thorny had learned from Kitty Kat in number eight, that the squeaky little excuse of a dog that lived above Frog, in number six, had somehow gotten tangled up in his leash as he and the old gentlemen that owned him went out to pee. The little rat dog ended up tripping the old man and they tumbled down the stairs, waking everybody in building four, and building one, as four paramedic units, sirens whaling, pulled into the parking lot at four-thirty in the morning. How many pacemakers where jostled by all that excitement would have been interesting to find out. That alone had given the apartment cats in building four enough to talk about for days.
But Necco knew all of that, what she really wanted to know was who moved into the first unit in building one, number sixteen, where Nanny had lived. She knew she'd seen a cat carrier and wanted Thorny to go over there and find out if there was indeed a new cat in the village and all about it.
Thorny had been way ahead of her. He'd trotted over to the new tenants apartment shortly after they moved in, before the rains had started, and sat under the nearest shrub by the window. He saw the gal for himself. "You'd be pleased to know, Necco, that I've already introduce myself to her, and, of course, I told her all about the rest of you. She's a pretty little thing, if I do say so myself. She has a poofy little face and dreamy golden eyes," Thorny stopped, glanced over to the bedroom room window where she would be sitting by now, but because of the tree in front of her apartment, Thorny doubted she could see Necco, or any of the others. He scratched at a pesky itch behind his left ear with his hind paw.
"Well?" Necco egged, "What does she look like, besides her dreamy yellow eyes? What color is her fur and what is her breed? How old is she…I can't stand it, tell us all about her."
Thorny took another moment to wash the paw he'd just scratched his ear with, can't be too careful, you know. Necco stood up, hunched her back and spat, getting Thorny's attention again. "You don't have to go get in a huff, Necco. I'm getting to that part. She's got long white hair and a long poofy white tail. I think she said she's a Persian, or some such thing. She sure is sweet though. You'd all like her."
Thorny yawned, bored with the night and wanting to find a warm bed to sleep in before the day dawned, and before it got too hot. He had such a hard time sometimes, choosing the right house to nap in. They were all so cool and comfy. Life is so hard for a stray that is as charming as he is. "I'll tell you more tomorrow night," he said, turning to leave before Necco could stamp her feet and whack her tale against the widow pane, the way she had a habit of doing when things didn't go her way. "At least tell me her name…" Necco called after him. "Oh," he called back over his shoulder, "forgot to get that bit of information. Tomorrow night, perhaps," then he was gone.
Necco was frustrated and disappointed. Apartment life has its limits. She'd have to depend upon Thorny, a lovable and sassy stray, to bring more news tomorrow night. She said goodnight, to Frog and Markus, friends that she'd never seen the faces of; hearing only their voices echoing in the night.
This is a work of fiction based on real episodes in the life of an apartment cat. Any coincidence to any real human, place or animal is only in the imagination of the author. DBB
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