A Way to the Park of Gardens (Chapter 2)

Chapter Two - An Intruder

The telephone blared at the worst time. Miles was on edge. His little cat mind was reeling with all sorts of thoughts; smells and brown cloth boxes and threads and blood and — oh, it was all too much! He was a cat ready to explode.

After the leap of his life, Miles made a dash into the only other room in the whole house he never explored. It was at the end of the hall, just past the man and the woman’s room. The door was usually closed. The man and the woman never allowed him the opportunity to give it a good cat once over. It’s not like he never tried. When the man and the woman went to sleep, he’d put his nose to the bottom of the door and gave the air escaping a sniff. There was something there he never smelled before and darn, the curiousness would come upon him. He’d push his head into the door thinking it would give easily like the man and the woman’s bedroom door, (which would cause a creak followed by a scream then finally a slipper to his head). It was like trying to move a wall. He’d put his nose to the bottom again, inhale that smell, smack his head a little harder to the door then meow a meow of frustration. He even tried pushing it open with his paws, or he’d force a paw under the door trying to touch something, anything, but he wasn't about to hurt himself. His head was doing that nicely.

So, this day, out of all the countless days trying, Miles found himself in that room, not because he wanted to but because it was a last resort. The feeling of achievement was negated by his rapid heartbeat and fear of being where he shouldn’t. But he was in and he was going to take advantage of this sudden turn of events.

The room was dark and yet there was an ambience, like the first day of spring.

"Why did they keep me from this room?" He wondered.

He took a few steps giving the floor a whiff. The room was half filled with boxes, the right kind of boxes he noticed, cardboard. There was a dainty bed with delicate covers resting like a weary child up against the far wall. Sunlight was shining through a single curtained window. Miles was mesmerized by the dust floating in the stillness of the sunbeam. He thought of his brothers and sisters for a fleeting moment letting out a half sigh. The room had the look of joy but there was sadness also, like something was half done.

Miles wanted to finish his search of the mysterious room, but stopped, licked his left haunch, spun around and suddenly saw the woman coming up the stairs. He quickly felt panicked. He shuffled to the side of the doorway and spied. The woman was coming his way. He turned, went to the pretty bed and silently slunk under. A tiny cloud of empty room dust upset under his paw. He stifled a sneeze as the woman came into the room. His breath came to him hard. He wasn’t doing anything wrong other then being in the room, but he was nervous. He couldn’t gauge the woman’s intentions so he took a peek. She was ruffling through one of the boxes pulling out this and that, all things unknown to him. She stopped. She turned her head towards him. He made like a snake and slithered further back. His breath came uneven now, through nose, then mouth, then nose. He immediately felt the urge to pee.

She walked to the edge of the bed, close enough for Miles to claw her sneaker if he wanted to. His rear end was right up against the wall. If he could manage and was desperate, he’d plow backwards through it like a sledgehammer. The tension was driving him to a near total breakdown. Then the woman did something totally unexpected. She began to cry, first tiny soft sobs, then deep bellows.

Cat’s sense grief: the sights, the sounds, the overall aura. Miles knew the woman was unhappy about something for weeks, but this was the first time he heard her cry. He wanted to come from underneath the bed and console her like cats do; a leg rub, a soft knowing meow, and a lick to the face. Isn’t that why humans love cats so?

But he stayed.

There was something about the sobbing. It had the heavy weight of unbelievable sadness and loss. He didn't understand it, but it was there. The woman rubbed her eyes to stop the flow of tears. She then began to caress the dainty white bedspread, ironing out any creases with her hand and said, “Some day...some day...” She sniffed in one last teardrop, turned, went for the door and closed it on her way out.

Miles came from under the bed to continue his exploration when he heard her footsteps again just outside the door. Was she coming back? He backed up and waited. The doorknob turned. The door swung open and the woman reappeared. Miles peeked out and watched as she went behind a stack of boxes and grabbed something he’d never seen before. It was the about the size of one of the brown cloth boxes but had a small window in front. The window looked like what was on the front door of the house, metal lines up and down and side to side. Suddenly, a memory of his past burst inside his brain.

He was too small to remember all the extremely minute details, but what he did remember was he was terrified, he cried incessantly and he was swaying back and forth for what seemed like forever. And most of all, it was pitch dark, hot and traumatic.

Cats have very good memories when it comes to places or people, especially their smells. Miles was abnormal. He had very good memories of events. He could recall when a particular meal was fed him, or when the vet came to the house to look him over that night it rained and thundered, or the very first time the small boy pulled his tail. Most of the events were stressful, true, but at times Miles could remember the insignificant. He remembered what the small boy wore the first day he met him when all the child could do was chase him throughout the house trying to pull his tail; a short sleeve blue and green shirt, blue jeans and black sneakers that had strange figures on them. A human would have a difficult time recalling at least one article of clothing let alone three. But Miles had this particular gift.

The woman took the windowed box and exited the room. This time she left the door open, as if she forgot where she was. Miles waited until he heard her walk down the noisy stairs before making a hasty escape. He silently followed the woman, waiting to go down the stairs when she turned the corner into the kitchen. Once at the bottom, he peered around the fancy old wooden thick moldings of the doorway leading to the kitchen and saw the woman place the windowed box into the large stainless steel kitchen sink. She turned the faucet on and began spraying water about the box. She bent down opening the door under the sink grabbing a sponge and proceeded to scrub the box rigorously.

All this slinking around was making Miles very hungry. He wanted to meow, announce the fact immediately. But something told him not to. He could maybe steal something from the smooth square box that held things the humans didn’t want anymore, like food, when they weren’t around. For now though, he had to watch the woman. He watched her thinking how all that has happened, starting with the brown cloth box, the paper at the top of the stairs and the box with the metal window all had something to do with him. His senses were screaming it. His back hairs weren’t standing on end anymore, but he was still uneasy. That uneasiness, a sudden feeling, told him to turn his head and look behind him into the small hall leading into the living room. There he noticed a shadow reflect from an old wood framed mirror hung on the wall over a half-moon table.

"Did the shadow just move?" He thought. "Was it a spider or one of those silverfish bugs?"

He looked back inside the kitchen at the woman. She was still busy with the windowed box scrubbing every inch. He turned and began to search for whatever it was that caused that shadow movement. He took slow steps, gauging every move, making sure not to make a sound. He wasn’t the greatest mouser, never actually catching one, but he enjoyed the break from his present worrisome skittish state. He sniffed the air. The cleaner the woman was using was hardy and astringent. Miles moved into the living room, passing behind a wing chair.

He stopped cold.

He pricked his ears and blocked out the sounds coming from the kitchen. He turned his head towards the cavernous family room. Moving with rapidly static steps: right front paw forward, left back paw, stop, left front paw forward, right back paw, stop. Miles cautiously ate up space between his prey and himself. He sniffed again. The cleaner was gone, replaced by something new, something wild. A feeling rolled over him like a wave. His cat instincts kicked in and he hunkered down behind an end table. The instincts come easy to feral cats. For Miles it was foreign. The intruder forced all thoughts of the past day behind him. This new feeling took over. He wasn’t sure if he was enjoying it, but it was exciting. Wait! There it was! He found the shadow.

The satin smooth coat of the chipmunk cast back the late afternoon sun giving the tiny animal an impressive glow. Its movements were even more spastic then Miles, but the chipmunk hadn’t caught wind of Miles scent. Traces of the cleaning product the woman was using in the kitchen masked Miles giving him the advantage. Miles wiggled his hindquarters. His instincts told him to attack at once, but he held himself back. His controlled nature got the better of him. His claw made the tiniest of a sound.

“You can’t catch me, kitten,” said the chipmunk in a high-pitched voice.

First, when an animal of any type calls a cat that is more then past the age of being called a “kitten” a kitten, it’s done as a mockery and the chipmunk spat it out with much bravado. Secondly, animals use a type of universally agreed upon language, much like “English”, it’s understood for the most part give or take a word or two.

“Why not?” Hissed Miles.

The chipmunk scampered under the short feet of a bookcase. Poking his head out he said, “You’re housed, not wild. You don’t have the cunning.”

Miles fumed, “I have, cunning.”

“How can you have cunning,” continued the chipmunk as he ran to the other leg of the bookcase, “You’re human fed, human coddled.” The chipmunk came from under the protection of the large bookcase and stopped ten feet from in front of Miles taunting him with an eye wink.

Miles didn’t know what to make of the small animal. He’d see them scurrying about outside running around like they didn’t have a care in the world, jumping just to jump, chirping their little chirp sounds just to hear themselves chirp or pop their heads out of the holes in the ground to get a drop of rain water or a breath of fresh air without fear of an attack. Reckless and restless, the opposite of laze about window sills Miles the cat.

“I’m fast and young,” boasted Miles. “I can catch you easily.”

“Come and try, oh cunning pimpernel,” baited the chipmunk. “I am sure your claws are sharp, but what of your intuition.”

Miles tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

The chipmunk squeaked, which for this chipmunk was more like a chuckle. He quickly moved towards the kitchen keeping his eyes on Miles. Miles took a step forward, terrified the chipmunk would cause the woman to scream. The chipmunk stopped. Miles froze. The chipmunk looked into the kitchen and then turned back to Miles.

“The human is busy,” the chipmunk remarked.

“Do not bother her,” warned Miles.

The chipmunk squeaked again. As fast as a camera flash, the chipmunk raced across the kitchen doorway to the other side keeping close to the baseboard, stopping at the foot of the staircase. Then, as fast as it raced across the doorway, it turned around and went back. It did this several times, stopping to check the woman and then run again, back and forth, back and forth. The diminutive mammal seemed to have bottomless energy.

Miles sat transfixed as the chipmunk dared him to give chase. Should he try? What would the woman do? Would she yell? Would she yell if he didn’t? Then suddenly the chipmunk stopped in the center of the doorway. It turned towards Miles and winked.

“Come with me to see the world, little kitten,” dared the chipmunk.

“Oh!” Shouted the woman from the kitchen.

Most cats at this time would make a mad dash to catch whatever intruder was in the house. But Miles stood firm. As the woman chased the chipmunk with a sponge in one hand and a large metal spoon she grabbed from a drawer in the other, Miles watched from the family room. Chairs were knocked over, a shin bruised, a table shoved from its place, the comical scene looked like something from a silent movie or an old cartoon. Through it all, the woman looked towards Miles yelling: “Why aren’t you trying to catch this thing?” Of course, Miles couldn’t understand a word, but he sensed the disappointment. He felt bad. Why wasn’t he able to at least drive away the little rodent?

When after fifteen and a half minutes of neck twisting, breath taking, skin scrapping, merry chasing, the chipmunk bounded to a hole in the corner of the kitchen near the back door where he had originally infiltrated, caught a glimpse of Miles, shook his head as if he wanted Miles to follow and wriggled out safe and sound.

The woman, about as disheveled as a wind-blown sweaty bag lady dragged her tired body into the family room and stood breathing heavily over Miles.

“What's the matter with you!” Spat out the woman between gasps of breath. “It’s your job to chase mice or whatever else gets in this house!” She went on one knee reaching towards him and grabbed him by the back of his neck. She pulled him up. He was as limp as a rag doll. She turned him around so her nose and his were nearly touching. “What am I to do with you? You lay about the house like a king, you cry like a baby a lot, you bother us at the worst moments...” She brought him into the kitchen placing him down on the white tiled floor. She squared him so that his body was facing the hole in the corner. “Now I want you to sit there and watch for that little thing. I have to finish cleaning your carrier.”

Miles sat on the cool floor looking forward and then at the woman. Now, in all honesty, he didn’t understand the instructions, but he knew that the little hole in front of him was important. For a minute, he sat still staring at the hole. He turned his head looking at the woman hulked over the sink washing the carrier. He turned back to the hole. He then got up on his legs and made for the doorway into the family room.

“Uh, uh, uhhhh....you go back and watch for that thing, Mister!” boomed the woman.

Miles stopped in his tracks and looked at the woman.

“Go ahead,” she commanded, pointing to the corner. “Do what you were put on this planet to do.”

Miles retreated back to the corner and sat. He felt the anger of the woman and he didn’t want to be picked up again. Cats can at times feel ashamed, although they hate to reveal it. Miles knew he should have done something about that chipmunk. It just wasn’t in his particular nature. He liked watching. His favorite time during the passing of any given day is to lie on the back room window sill stretched out over the heat of the radiator gazing into the large backyard, watching life go about it’s daily toil. Let the hawk catch the chipmunk, he had to observe the butterfly sucking nectar from a lily.

Finally, after scouring the carrier until it glistened like new, the woman placed it next to the wooden kitchen table and walked up to Miles. “Okay, my mighty house guardian, I guess the thing is gone and won’t be back.” She rubbed his head causing Miles to purr loudly. “I’ll get you some food. I'm sure you're starving after chasing that chipmunk." Sarcasm dripped from every word.

Miles immediately sprang from his sitting position and began rubbing her pant leg.

“Okay, okay...” she said brushing him back with her foot. “Give me a sec.”

The woman bent down, opened one of the lower cabinet doors and pulled out a can of cat food. She placed the can under the can opener; it tore through the lid with ease. She then opened an upper cabinet door and came out with a blue and yellow stripped bowl and proceeded to dump the canned goop into his cat bowl.

Purring, meowing and rubbing, Miles made his pleasure known to the woman. Laughing, the woman bent down, placed the food near the carrier and stood watching as Miles went into the salmon-like goo with abandon.

“My little four-legged young man,” the woman said regarding the cat with a touch of melancholy. “My little man.” She tilted her head. A tear slid down her cheek splashing on the tile next to the ravenous cat.

Miles stopped his feeding frenzy and glanced up at the woman. He let out a soft meow. The woman laid her hand on the back of his neck and stroked his soft fur over and over. Miles loved the feel of her hand on his body. He went back to the food and continued.

The phone rang with a vengeance.

The woman went to the cordless phone sitting on the counter top, looked at the caller ID and answered. “We were waiting to hear from you since yesterday. Is everything all right?” She looked down at Miles. “Yes, I cleaned his carrier so you won’t have to worry about that.” She twirled a lock of hair looking at the carrier. "Aunt Fran, I scrubbed it so clean I can see myself.”

Slowly, from the back of his neck to the tip of his tail, Miles hair began to stand on end. He stopped eating and looked at the hole in the corner. Was the chipmunk back? He sniffed. There was a smell. Something new. He turned and walked to the woman.

“Aunt Fran, Pat will be back with food for him...yes, he’ll have enough, probably too much...right, dry and wet stuff.”

Miles went up to the woman sniffing around her. He looked at the carrier. He sniffed. The smell was coming from the strange windowed box. The hairs on his back were still standing, but now he felt an ache behind his ear.

“Yes, Aunt Fran,” said the woman shaking her head. “Yes, and litter...yes...we really do appreciate it, honestly....”

The ache made Miles shake. He staggered towards the woman’s legs wanting to brush against her. His vision became blurry. The woman’s legs swayed like palm trees during a hurricane. He missed them by a foot stumbling out the kitchen into the back family room. The pain became intense. He wanted to vomit, but instead moaned.

“Tomorrow around twelve....the flight is seven-thirty.” The woman turned towards the carrier. “Yeah...the weather will be nice from what I’ve heard. The islands this time of year will be teeming, but I’m not worried about the crowds...just to get away from this cold and rest a little will be wonderful.” She bent down looking under the table. “What?” She scanned the kitchen looking for Miles. “You think you found a new friend?” Not finding him, the woman poked her head out into the back room looking up the stairs.

Miles didn’t know where he was. The room walls were melting, furniture warped into molten wax, windows gleamed hot white, the hardwood floors were needles, the fireplace was a cavernous hole, wall hangings turned into chalk drawings, everything belched heat waves. Miles tried to meow, but all that came out was a faint hiss.

“Miles!” The woman shouted. “Wait...wait...wait, huh? I’ll have to call you back.” She shut off the phone throwing it onto the counter top. She shouted Miles name again, looking around frantically. “Where are you?”

Miles heard a sound that was thick and thunderous. From under the sofa in the family room he moaned. Not because he recognized it, but because it hurt. Every inch of his body from the top of his ears to bottom of his paw pads, from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail, from inside and out was at its absolute zenith. The thundering came closer. He tried to drag his body from it’s hiding place but his muscles were not responding. His eyes rolled as he let out one last attempt at meowing. Passing out from complete exhaustion, his last thoughts were of a black bird flying circles around his life-less body.