The Chronicles of Life

Introduction

Every day I see the lives of animals saved, and I see the lives of animals perish. I see firsthand what it is like to suffer at the hands of humans and their machines; to be picked up and thrown in a plastic bag, to feel the aftermath of a car ramming my body and leaving me half alive to starve on the side of the road in a puddle of pain, to slowly die surrounded by strangers that try to love me but can't save me from the virus that ravages through my veins. Humans can't see me, and animals can't see me, but I am here. I am the dying spirit of an old connection between nature and these animals that have evolved beyond all others; humans.

Now I live in unusual places, pockets of a dying world that is slowly being replaced by those strange emotionless machines of technology. My moods shift and change with the stories around me, and for the moment I've chosen my new favourite place. It is Australia, where the land is flat and the rain never reaches the centre except in brilliant displays of strength and power.

Here there are stories that pull me in, swallow me, and here I see the dying connection between man and the world around it. Here, I live the lives of those around me. Here, my essence lives on in the hearts of every nurse and volunteer. Here, I live and I die.

It was early one evening when I was pulled into the life of another. My blissful sleep was torn to pieces by the tiny hands of a child. My body, new to me for an instant, was feline. I was a skinny pile of bones, and I was weak. I couldn't run, and the monster had caught me.

He grabbed my leg, and in one foul crack he thrust it against his knee. For an instance the pain was gone, not quite there yet, and I wondered if this was real. Then it hit me, a tidal wave of agony that would never cease. My throat burned from yowling but it was nothing, not even a touch compared to the burning of my breaking body.

He did it again, and again. Those tiny hands connected to a body so much bigger than me. He did that, and his mother stood oblivious at the large cooking pot on the stove, stirring and stirring and stirring. I could smell the food, and for an instant that smell mixed with the pain. Good food, bad boy, burning pain. Then I was lost again, sent into that nothingness that you never recognised until you awoke.

When I did, I was immersed in the not quite quiet of the hospital. There were more humans around me, and in a sudden rage I began to hiss and twist and strike. Their voices rose, but they seemed to be calm, calmer than the murderous screams of the boys rage. They put sharp spikes into my leg and pumped fluid through me until I couldn't feel, couldn't see, couldn't hear. Then I slept again.

That became my routine for many days, maybe even weeks. I slept, and I woke. I ate a little, I got more medicine, more check-ups and prodding. Afterwards the humans would return me to the cell, the tiny white box with one side open to the world, if you could peer beyond the metal bars. There were others here, others like me. They meowed and cried through the night, for attention, for a release from the pain, or for those memories of happiness and warmth that I had abandoned long ago.

It was almost a week later when they took my leg. I hadn't walked on it, hadn't walked at all. It was a constant limb of numbness, occasionally broken by the stabbing pain that I had learnt to forget. It would strike outwards, but after it became an ache that never left me. It was the ache that hurt the worst, as I could never stretch, never escape it. Even now the ghost limb aches.

It wasn't long before I left the life of that kitten. Floating again, I know how her story goes on without me. It hasn't ended, but it has grown happy. One of the volunteers at the hospital, the lady that brought her in at the very start, took her home. There she gets fed and cuddles and love. She has learnt to live, to chase the birds from the back yard, to play with the old tom cat the lady owns. It took her a long time to understand that these humans were different, that they didn't want to hurt her, but now she can live. I can live.