Loss of Life

Had our first present from the cats this morning - a rat, bitten in two, left swarming with ants in our back yard. Nice.

This evening we had a real fright. Some friends of ours came round with their two girls to see our new place and the cats. The first thing I said to their youngest as she came through the door was, "Don't chase after the cats: they're nervous of strangers. Just approach them slowly." I may as well have been talking to myself. On seeing four strangers approaching, the cats turned and ran from the back door, across the dining room and into the hall. But the girls rushed after them. Stormy panicked and raced down the hall, into the kitchen and leaped straight for the open window above the sink. Well, it would have been an open, were it not for the screen. Stormy bounced back, stunned, into a glass bowl on the countertop and leapt back to the floor, taking the bowl with him. It shattered with a terrific crash. Terrified now, Stormy raced back down the hall, onto the porch, and straight over the wall - a fifteen foot drop to the ground below.

My heart leapt into my mouth. But I had barely taken a step towards the porch when I saw Dark, too, poised on the porch wall. He hesitated for a second after Stormy jumped, then he too leapt.

"Oh, shit."

I raced to the edge of the porch to see Dark running up the steps towards our neighbour's house, apparently uninjured. But of Stormy there was nothing to be seen.

I spent half an hour scouring our property and the surrounding area looking for Dark and Stormy and fuming over what had happened. Dark we caught a glimpse of, still seeming fine. But of Stormy there was no sign. It was about six hours before we saw him again - a plaintive meow outside our back door was followed by a very nervous five minutes when he would take a step inside, then back out again, then take another in. Finally he came all the way in. Like Dark, he too appeared miraculously uninjured. But both of them must have surely used up one of their lives.