Random Story Snippets (story starters)

Idgie

All I could see from behind my eyelids was darkness. I knew if I opened them, the only difference in scenery would be a dim light shining through the crack beneath my bedroom door. I lay on the floor, on top of a couple of blankets, covered by a large quilt that doubled as a mattress. My bed was beside me, so tempting, but unreachable. I had to lie where I was. Moral support. The only sounds to be heard, the slight rustle of the quilt as I shifted the weight I placed on my hip as I lay on my side. The low rumbling of the refrigerator in the kitchen right outside my room, and the insistant mewling of a four hour old kitten. Along with annoyed meows and growls from her young mother.

I was waiting for a second kitten to come. Hoping nothing went wrong. The first kitten, the one that mewed almost as loud as its mother, had been born tail first. I had panicked as soon as I'd realised why my much loved cat had begun to meow and complain in spurts, continuously changed positions, and had earlier attempted to push me off the chair I'd sat in before her. So far no second kitten seemed to be coming. It had been the sight of a paw coming out of my cats arse that had alerted me to the fact she was in labour.

The kitten had been born with minimal fuss (other than being backward) and my cat had reverted to her natural instincts instantly. Licking the wet sack off of the newborn, and ingesting it. The kitten sure did have a set of lungs. Sure did not enjoy being cleaned by its mother. The kitten, from what little Mummy-Cat had allowed me to see, was the spitting image almost of its mother. Black fur all over with a white chest. I hadn't seen the paws long enough to take in account their colour, only long enough to draw on the conclusion that new-born kittens looked like small drowned rats. Not exactly pretty until adequetly cleaned of the placenta.

I knew staying with my cat through its first night of its first litter would help me earn even more of her trust than I already had. I was looking forward to being able to pick up my cat without worrying about unborn babies.

When I had met Idgie, she had been a next to feral kitten. Not tolerating human company for a second unless you outsmarted her and caught her. Then managed to hold on through her wrigglings, mewing, and squirming to get away. As well as her mothers death stare, the glare that made you feel guilty for even looking at the kitten. I had not done this again after the first two times. That was not how you earned an animals trust. So instead I sat still. Hoping the kitten would come up to me. She never did.

I saw her one day, pouncing on a stick, and got an idea. Later, after school, I sat on the concrete driveway, with a reasonable length stick, and scratched it along the ground. If the end of the stick stayed an adequite distance from me, the kitten would play with it. Pounce on it. Bite it. Slowly, but surely, I was able to use shorter sticks. Two months after meeting the skittish kitten, I played with her dam and grandam. The sight of the two older females trusting me enough to rub against me, push their heads against my fingers for pats and even climb into my lap, must have been what my kitten had needed to find trust in me. She finally, willingly, allowed me to put my fingers in her thick, silky fur.

The kitten was still skittish around me after that. It didn't worry me. The sense of acheivement was already stored within my breast. A sense I wasn't letting go of anytime soon.

A change in circumstances for the kittens owner is what allowed me to finally give the feline a name, and call her my own. Her owner had known Idgie would not survive long at the pound. Who would want to adopt an apparantly ugly looking cat that wouldn't go within ten feet of you?

So Idgie was brought to my home, where, as soon as she was let out of the pet carrier, she hid under the bed and didn't come out until I had to physically bundle her up in my arms, and pull her out. She was taught to know that the three people she now lived with were no threat to her. She only hides under the bed now if there are fireworks, friends of mine, Mums or my stepdads, or like now, with her kitten. Unless of course she's avoiding me, because I'm either paying her too much attention, or not enough and she's sulking.

I loved my cat. I love my cat, would be the correction. Sadly I am already growing attached to the new addition also. I may not be able to keep the new kitten.

But, as always, life goes on and time will never slow down for you.