The Life of a Cat

27. About a straight line and blanks

Zara pushed us all backwards. She almost stepped on my tail. Do you know the feeling of a swish of air right next to your most precious element? It is scary.
"No, this area is not ready to be visited yet. Our staff members are cleaning up. We'll go see the birds." She smiled, but her smile was shaky, like she wanted to hide something.

I heard Cats wailing from behind Zara. I heard dogs howling. The humans were shushing them, but I could still hear it because Cats, like every educated human knows, have a very developed hearing.
I wanted to free those animals.

So I slipped behind Zara. She didn't see me, as she was occupied with holding all the humans back. And I meowed. As loudly as I could.

Hearing me, all the other Cats wailed as well. My sound gave them strength.

The dogs howled as loudly as they could. The birds chirped in a panicky way. The fish...well, they just bubbled around. But their only use is for eating, so who cares?

"Why are all these animals crying out in distress? I thought they are well treated!

But Zara immediately replied: "Oh, I am so sorry for all of this noise! It's just the new animals, they are often scared."
I snarled. Her arguments made sense. But I knew, oh I knew, that she was torturing them. They needed my help. And I wanted Myrow. I didn't really care for all the other Cats, except for my family. Myrow was my soul, she was my life. I needed her.

The animals continued howling. Felix was starting to look suspicious. Even Mike looked around questioningly. Mom still was trying to get inside of the room and Zara was holding her off. Dad was looking on his light emitting human device and was muttering stuff like "yes, the cages. The food, yes. I need to remember the food. And the water. Yeah, this is good." I guess he was looking at some rules.

Suddenly, a Cat escaped from the human grip. It was a grey Cat with white paws. I didn't remember his name, but he ran up to Mom and sat down. He was shivering, probably from fear. When Mom tried to touch him, he jerked back. When I was still a part of the Wild Cat group, he was the nice Cat you could go to for a hug or some comforting words. It did not seem like him.
Felix came up to the Cat that I didn't remember the name of. He gently approached his hand, and stroked the Cat's back. He pulled his hand back, suddenly.

"He has whip marks on his back. What have you been doing to these animals?"

Zara looked scared. She backed off, just like I've been wanting her to for all this time. She let Felix, Mom, Dad, Mike, and all the other humans get into the rooms. The other humans just sat there. I think they realized they lost.

They all had animals in their grip, almost choking most of them. I went into the room as well. There was no sense in hiding anymore, nothing mattered except freeing the animals.

I looked through the rows of smaller cages than the ones up front, there were tons of Cats. But not the one I was looking for.
I walked between the cages, the animals were looking at me sadly. But they looked hopeful. And they were right to have hope.

In the last row of cages was a door. It was hard to open because I am pretty small, I must admit, but I opened it. There were no humans in it, but just a few cages. And in the very last one of them sat Myrow.
When I saw her, I just meowed. Other people hug or touch noses. I couldn't hug or touch noses because of the stupid cage. Besides, Myrow and I have always been simple Cats. I meowed, because for me, a meow can hold so much in it.

She meowed back. And she looked at me with such a loving look, I could not help it. I told her that I'd come with other humans to free everyone and ran back outside.

When I came back, Dad was looking at the humans holding animals. He asked them what they had been doing. One of them responded.

"Well, I guess we've lost so there's no use hiding everything. Zara's our boss. She's decided that we would capture animals out of the wild, make them learn tricks with violence because that's the fastest, and sell them for cash to crazy people. Yeah."

"What's your name?"

"I'm David. 'Sup." His monotonous tone made me want to scratch him.

I found Felix. He looked at me.
"The Cat. Do you know what they've been doing to your bros and sis'? They've been hitting them, Cat. They've been fudging hitting them. For..."he spat the word out "money. For fudging money."
And he buried his face in his hands.
"I don't want to be a human anymore. I'm ashamed of what they did. I can't bear to look at you anymore!"

I rubbed myself against his leg. I wished I could just communicate with him. But the Almighty Cat has made it so that humans and Cats cannot interact well. Which is really sad.

I meowed. I needed to show him Myrow. "Do you want me to follow you? Ok. Do you have anything happy to show me?"

I sprinted all along the cages that Dad was already packing together to get them back in the wild and to their right owners. I heard Dad say that luckily, the Shelter had written down everyone they took the animals from, because they always noted everything.

When I reached the door, Felix opened it. I stood in front of Myrow who was meowing like crazy. And he said, to my greatest joy:
"What a cute little cat! That was a very happy thing. I'm still sad, though. I think Mike'll really like it. First, let's take it out and let's see if it's nice."

Oh yes, Myrow was nice. Felix carried her all the way to Mike, who was looking at Zara angrily. He looked like he was ready to punch her.

"Look at this little cat! Don't you like it?"
"Oh my god! It's the little cat from our doorstep! Don't you remember, the Cat?"

I did remember. But I could not foresee that Mike would run to Mom and start begging her to adopt Myrow.

And you know what?

She didn't give an answer.

I hate blank spaces.