2020-08-16 - Cat Jesus, Mewter Rogers

One of life's little exciting challenges is cats. Anyone who's ever been into breeding birds in any kind of outdoors voliere or cage can testify to this. The occasional sparrowhawk will take a budgie if it's stupid enough to squeeze out through the chicken wire, but evolution tends to teach the remainder of the flock pretty quickly that the quickly moving shadow overhead is in fact not your friend. A fox will dig at the corners of a cage, particularly if it contains chickens -- but with a bit of concrete and proper fences, foxes wander off soon enough because they are inherently lazy creatures who think it a lot easier to go turn your garbage tin over instead. Ferrets and weasels will do their best but usually can't squeeze in unless there's an opening that shouldn't exist.

Cats, however, excel at sitting statue still and waiting. Still enough that they don't register on the blink-look-blink-look movement scan of birds. And their paws are indeed slim enough, fast enough, and clawed enough that they're perfectly capable of suddenly moving, spearing a bird on those five murder daggers of a front paw, and yank the unfortunate victim out through the chicken wire or between the bars. Of all the enemies a hobby bird owner could have, cats are the absolute worst.

Smart cats, of course, are the absolute worst of the absolute worst.

There's blood in the grass, and a few scattered feathers. Something did indeed make it out through the cage walls and was promptly consumed on the lawn, by something that was probably a cat.

In spite of this, at least the baby chicken is safe -- if a little shaken. It cheeps happily on seeing the person in charge of the chicken feed.

Chickens are such a pain in the ass, truly. Ignacio resigned 7 months ago that his ornothologically gifted other half was going to save the world one critter at a time. The city boy , being the peace loving soul he is, said I'll build them all a tiny house.

The first of the chickens (named Canary) seemed fine and with some care he picks up the tiny startled bird while reading out his mind with a link to the chicken to just keep it calm. "There we go. Everything's groovy. Let's get yoooou back inside first." He's still moving with a crutch though he's at least down to one mostly. living with a superlative healer means a little bit at a time and every day gets a bit better. Sure it's a long way to go but he's come really damn far and the people and scenery have been nice along the way.

Putting the chicken back in the coup he starts checking for holes and gaps murmuring, "You're lucky you didn't get taken up by a bigger bird mistaking you for a very nosy chicken nugget."

Every chicken farmer can tell the story of that chicken. The one that's smart enough to open doors and get into seed containers. The one who's mean enough that if she meets the fox in the bushes, the fox wanders off to be back another day. The one who glares. The one who inexplicably disappears whenever the farmer takes out an axe -- and reappears a few days later when there's suddenly a lot more room in the coop. Some chickens can grin. That kind of chicken lives until it dies of ripe old age, and the term 'bird brain' would not be an insult here, because that kind of chicken is an absolute survivor. Ahead in the evolutionary race by a beak length -- a very sharp beak length, at that.

At the moment, though, Nugget the Nosy Chicken Nugget is just a small ball of yellow fluff whose mind goes food nao? when touched. A somewhat limited intellect, and that's being generous. Animal minds do not overcomplicate or overthink. Herd or pack animals have highly complex social structures but they sort them out right away -- they don't sit around negotiating or speculating about them. Score one point for the animal kingdom.

The fence seems to be intact. There are no missing nails or suspicious openings where they should not be. Maybe this is why the future Doom Nugget is still alive and stuffing her little face in the coop now. Whatever died here did not originate from within the coop or the cage, at least. That's the good news.

The bad news are sitting over there under that tree. The bad news are a large grey and white tom cat with a face that looks like it does not understand the concept of closed doors. Definitely some Persian in that cat.

And if you ask it, there's going to be Chicken Nugget too. Just you wait.

You'd think Ignacio would be getting better with birds by now. Really they own him. That's what he knows. "Oye, Danger Nugget, deja de alejarte o serás un verdadero refrigerio. Comprende?" He sighs and waves a hand at the chicken. it don't get it. Not really. He drops some more seeds there to keep the bird occupied before stepping out. Closing it carefully and telling the door "Stay." You know. In case.

Looking down at his hands there's blood on them and out of reflex just double checks that it's not stitches or anything. No. Good. Cool cool. He considers and looks to the house that is perennially haunted, "You fuckin with me?" Maybe, but maybe not. Carefully he wanders back over to lay his hand on the site with the blood and with a nudge, pushes glimmer down into the ground to force the memory up lie filling a glass with water to get the ball out. If something's injured, well he's inclined to want to know, or help. For all he knows it could be their enemy returned making birds crash out of the sky again. He will CERTAINLY want to get that cleaned up before Finch gets home.

What goes up must come down. And when it does indeed go down, something else must come up, to make room for what is going down. The figurative ball rises in the figurative glass as the figurative water is poured in.

In the bushes, the grey and white tomcat watches. A few feathers flutter around Ignacio's knees as he sits in the grass.

And then the memories flood up, like a ping pong ball shooting out of a bucket at high speed, ricocheting off the walls of the Spaniard's mind, and dropping fragments of memory and intent all in chaotic patterns. The contact is strong, disturbingly strong -- and the mind that his is touching is not human. It never was human.

The duck is plump and slow and careless. The grey and white tom stalks towards it, one step at a time. He is in plain sight but he moves in that casual, slow fashion that tells the waterfowl nothing about his intentions until suddenly, he is close enough to pounce. Not all cats would feel comfortable tackling prey that large, but the grey and white tom is fearless. He's young, he's big and he's strong, and over there, a black cat is watching.

Sudden pain and terror as a heavy weight lands on a duck's back. Claws like daggers sink into his wings and chest. Teeth like javelins close around his throat, choking him. He flails and trashes but it's over.

Suddenly, Ignacio is much smaller and closer to the ground. Or maybe it's the perspective of the memories that flood him; the memories of someone who is sitting over there, under the porch, watching a tom cat kill a duck. Memories burst into his mind, jagged and sharp and feline and absolutely, definitely not intended for human consumption. Memories that are not memories at all but the present. A present viewed through the luminescent yellow eyes of a small black cat.

The man on his knees, touching the ground. What does he want? He's supposed to yell and rage and throw things at the tom cat. To chase it off. Or go get a gun and shoot it. That's what humans do.

The man is acting wrong.

The man carried the chicken inside. Men do this. They protect their food birds. Ducks are food birds. The tom killed the food bird and the man is not responding as humans should.

It is very confusing.

Ignacio waits and watches the memory. Memory bringing sympathetic reflex of emotion. His ability to care is maybe his greatest super power, but there's drawbacks, and that is leaving himself open to a torrent odd fears, hunger, confusion, and fear. Fingers clutch the ground and his shoulders slump. The ground frets a little more damp and it takes a moment for him to really and look around.

A hand wiping his face he stays kneeled on the ground because moving will take effort. Looking around his eyes hunt for the tiny culprit and asks the impossibl question trying to fill the immediate area with a sense of calm, Calm yourself de Santos... now? There's a cat? Huh. He asks, "Hey....hey you ok out there? You hungry? I can't let you eat my girlfriend's chicken, but I can get you some food. "

Two cats sit on a lawn. A large grey and white tom sitting in the tall grass near the bushes, looking curiously at the man who's on his knees near the remains of that very yummy duck he ate before wandering over here to nap. And a small black stray sitting half hidden under the porch, watching that very same man, wondering why he is not acting like a human should.

Then they look at each other.

The man on his knees can still hear them. Somehow, his mind has not yet entirely separated from theirs. Fragments of feline thought drift across the divide, unwanted. His mind helpfully tries to translate the images and emotions into something a human can relate to.

Nice tail. The grey and white tom cants his head. Gonna roll around in the grass for me a little, baby?

Get fucked. The black stray is very obviously not in heat.

Don't mind if I do. The tom gets up and starts sauntering towards the black.

Something changes. The black cat under the porch seems to grow. Not so much in the physical sense -- she's just a little cat, and skinny to boot. The feeling of her, though, intensifies until she feels as if she is too large for the space she occupies. As if the cat is just a shell, a window in through which looks something far bigger, something old and powerful and merciless. Something that eats horny tom cats for breakfast, then asks for seconds.

The tom senses it too. He freezes in mid-saunter. Then his tail fluffs up to four times its usual side and he hisses. He turns. He bolts.

And there they are -- the Spaniard and the black cat looking at each other.

Disappointment.

Resignation. The man is not going to go get a gun or a baseball bat and deal with the food bird stealing tom because the food bird stealing tom is gone.

The man gets to live.

Disappointed.

Ignacio looks around trying to get sense of this and rubs his temples of thumbs and forefinger of one hand. "I swear I'm getting too old for this and I'm not even 30...I've been hanging around Roen too much." Because the sky can commiserate today. Dark brown eyes move to the porch and... down. Uh huh. He looks up where the other cats vamoose, but weirdly can sense that shift. Alice in Wonderland called it being much more muchier. To Ignacio it means someone who is capable of taking care of themselves still feels hungry and alone?

It is a feeling that throws pebbles at the closed windows of his addictions.

He nods to the cat and says, "Hey, hang tight. You'll get to eat today." He looks back to see if there's that other Tom in the area and if need be fight him off with the might weapon of... more feelings of vague disinterest? It doesn't seem to be necessary. But either way the human that 'humans' wrong, and for that matter moves wrong as humans are expected to do, limps back inside the screen door off the porch and into the larder and kitchen area. It's a couple minutes of him explaining to Miss Mags and the Guinea Pig (who still needs a hat now), "The yard's a little busy right now. I'll get the window open for you though." This house is a menagerie. A pair of parrots, 5 chickens, a rat, a guinea pig, an Ignacio, and 2 women named after birds. It's a lot. And now there's a cat that got mean mugged for its lunch? Won't do.

When he comes back there's a cardboard box in his arms and he finds a spot not too far from the shelter that is the porch and pulls out: a small plate with chicken, turkey, and tuna on it. He doesn't know what they want to eat. That is set down, there's an empty bowl placed next to it. He cracks open the bottle of water to fill it and then pulls out the picnic blanket folded, and leaves it folded. The now empty cardboard box is tipped on its side with the blanket set so it is half inside and half outside the box.

That taken care of he sits on the porch to enjoy the sun, watch the chickens, and try to make sure that Tomcat keeps himself out of trouble for his own sake. Is he armed with a gun? No he's armed with a bottle of water and a notebook.

The connection is fading but a few thoughts still drift across the link between man and feline. Maybe the cat -- or whatever power is using its face -- wants the man to know what it is thinking. Maybe it thinks its thoughts are private. Maybe it doesn't care. That's the thing about cats; you can live with one for a decade but half the time you still won't know why it does the things it does. A trait which apparently also applies to things that wear a cat's little body but almost definitely is not actually a little cat.

The black stray is confused about the man. It watches him. It waits.

The plate of food has to be a trap.

Bait.

Except maybe it is not. The grey and white tom cat slinks back into the garden eventually. He keeps an eye on the black stray who still has not moved.

Eventually, he decides that she is not going to flay him alive for looking at her wrong. He moves up to the plate, one step at a time. Pauses a few times to nonchalantly wash his paws. Pretending to not see the human.

When he does get there, he makes quick business of the fish and fowl meat. He's a big cat with a big appetite.

The black watches.

Soon. The trap is about to spring.

The grey and white sits next to the empty plate. He licks his paws. He looks at the blanket.

It is a very nice blanket. He curls up on it.

The black stares at Ignacio.

You are a very strange human.

Ignacio watches the Tom cat and sighs. Not his intended target. There's a solution to this though. He can hear the message being sent back and sighs, "Weeeeeell, some humans are kinda disappointing. They're still learning." There is a sigh, chewing on the inside of his cheek with that thought and looks back to the deck, not that the cat is visible. "Believe me, I'm trying. People are a work in progress."

Looking back to the Tom cat he squints and says, waving a hand, "Fine. Eat, man. Just please leave her alone." Setting his notebook down he pulls himself to a stand and wanders back into the kitchen to just get the rest of the can of tuna and a small tupperware bowl with chicken he cooked that didn't make it into the salad he made them for dinner last night.

Making his way back out, leaning on the railing to support himself going down the three steps to the yard from the back porch he walks over to where black cat was and sticks the can of tuna under the porch carefully not to startle her. Carefully he approaches the tom cat and pulls out more chicken to put on the plate. "You two alright?" He looks from a distance to see if either are injured here and really they seem healthy."

A small black paw lashes out, trailing surprisingly sharp little claws over the hand that attempts to place an offering of tuna near a small black cat. The ungrateful creature swats the hand that would feed it, then turns and bolts, disappearing into the darkness.

An arterial hemorrhage it ain't. A few drops of blood at best. Stings a bit, though.

Strange human.

The thought drifts towards the Spaniard like parting words on the breeze; this is the mental voice of a creature that is very confused but also strangely pleased.

Then the stray is gone, leaving him alone with a well fed and highly content grey and white tom that looks entirely too well groomed and fed to not have a home. It's been a good day for the tom; first the duck, then dinner on a plate.

Everything is normal. Everything is fine. And the fact that three little vertical stripes on the back of Ignacio's hand very briefly glow bright yellow-green like a cat's eyes is surely perfectly normal, at least for Gray Harbor.

Ignacio withdraws his hand as quick as he can. It's more than his bum leg that was pieced back together from being his with a city bus. There is a sharp inhalation of air between clenched teeth and he spits out an apologetic, "Sorry! I'm sorry. Look, the food's there. You had a rough day I get it." He's smart enough not to put the wound in his mouth.

Looking back to the Tom he looks over to him tilting his head, "You gonna just be cool, alright. You need a place to crash, lil man... alright, but you gotta leave the other residents alone right? House birds and rodents are not food." He looks for that stray black again but she's somewhere way under the porch.

Another bowl of water is found and food left under for her in case. He sits on the porch with his notebook watching the tom cat. Maybe it'll come over, but he'l invite him, not force it. A cat is a cat, but if the cat has a family he could get hurt out here. The world is a scary dangerous place.