Feed A Pavid Cat:Ungrateful Cats who sometimes Kill There Owners.

One morning I awoke at six thirty, earlier than I usually do.

I thought it was the querulous horn of a hurrying motorist, that startled me, but it was Sunday- people around here walk to church- so I had to be falling out of my bed.

That has been happening on occasion of late. A relic of childhood that aroused from the deepest slumber, just before you learned the limits of your bed. I am thirty years old, and last night I crawled under my duvet.

Quite often, I trip over the extended leg of my friend Jim Beam, as I am walking to the mattress. He's rather enamored with me and likes to play the practical joke. If that were the case, then the peril I fell into this morning would make more sense, but without tender Jim like everything else is a dear price to pay. So, there is no reason why I should awake in the midst of a fall. Not from my bed, as is customary, and certainly not from a skyscraper.

Yes, a skyscraper I tell you, A skyscraper I don’t recognize. I don’t live in the city, and I don’t recognize this one, even if I were standing upright, it still wouldn't be New York or Chicago, or any other skyline I have seen on postcards. I am not half awake or half asleep, that would surely suffice, but I am falling headfirst from this building. And boy, is this building tall ?

It's a distinct shape, the kind you might find in a Middle Eastern city built on reclaimed land, or perhaps someplace where most old people are dead. The fifty plus stories in my periphery made the shape of a common letter L , turned upside down by some outlandish font towering into the skies, well above low hanging clouds. Clouds that clustered beneath me blocking out the ground below, and resting at the crown of the other buildings that may make up this city.

These observations I make not as I am falling, but as I await on the final thread of my pajamas to give way. From the right angle in the building, a window panel is missing so I am going to assume that my bed is on the other side. I rolled off the left side of my bed and out the window snagging the foot of my pajama pants on what I can only imagine is a nail, somewhere along the ledge. I just can't imagine flushing my bed so close to the walls made of glass so high in the sky.

Like bass wrestling against an angler, I panicked with every passing second letting forth a scream that was sucked into the engines of an airplane flying overhead. Useless, I thought, but then my cat poked his head over the windows ledge in that poised, and intrepid way that cats negotiate heights.

I wish I had given him a shorter name, a name I, myself, didn't have a hard time enunciating. I named her 'And he slew it' after I discovered her outside my door one morning, swatting a cricket with a paw that shredded its wings bit by bit, before a deadly pounce that stopped the buzzing or what ever noise it is that crickets make.

The night before, I was walking home from the tavern along Morrison Road when I stopped on the wall of the old cathedral to relieve myself. As always I looked from side to side, to make sure there is no one who may be offended by my actions. The coast was clear, or so I thought. I turned around and was surprised by a smiling cat prancing towards me. For the most part I can't stand the creatures and blame two members of the species, in particular for my divorce, but that is another story which I shall relay, at another time, if I get out of this one alive.
A smiling orange kitten has the ability to melt the hardest of hearts, I imagine, and since my heart isn't yet flint I kneeled over and picked him up. I tickled his chin and flattened his fur, before pressing our noses together. He, and I say 'he' because I had not learned her sex yet continued to smile the entire time.
I placed her back onto the ground then noticed a clowder of cats had gathered a few feet away, then went about my business. She had to be reprimanded and chased several times as I continued home only to find her steady on my heels. At this I started to jog away in hopes that she wouldn't keep up and as far as I knew, it worked. At least so I thought.

The days were stressful and dour, and I hadn't given too much thought to the rest of my life since my old lady left. If loneliness is the devil then this cats smile was surely a piece of heaven, so without a second thought I welcomed this stray into my home.
It wasn't long before things started to get a little crazy. There were five house plants set upon ledges inside my house and one by one she picked fights with each. It started with a hiss then the batting of claws, before long I would come home to a plant toppled over on the floor, with dirt scattered and irretrievable in the shaggy carpet. Leaves, stems and petals shredded and floating in the toilet, before the ultimate disappearance of the roots altogether. Once I could have sworn I heard her barking.

So about a month after she started running my home, I began hearing voices; quips and remarks directed at or about me. This may sound creepy to you and you may even question my mental proficiency, so let me make it clear. Other than the effects of the habitual tipping of a bottle of Beam, which in me brings about staggering, dribbling, bladder taps, and sometimes sleepwalking,I have never heard a voice that wasn't there, at any time in my life. I suspect the cat because, the words uttered are always in the same voice and tone, with phrases and sentences sounding like an inflective drawn out meow.

The draft at this height chilled my ears, all my appendages, and my exposed bottom.The hope that I had for being rescued slowly ebbed away as I heard and felt the continual tearing of my pajama pants.

I now hung by a waning cuff, my aching foot, the hook that kept me dangling in place.
My cat even at this most importune moment, was bright with laughter. That's right it was laughter not his customary smile, perhaps at my impending death.

Then I heard the words "you rat faced bastard."

In the same voice I have heard up until now. It was my cat, it was And he slew it all along. Like bad cats in cartoons, whipping their shiny claws before the kill, And he slew it exposed a lone nail, paused, then swiped at the last thread. I remained hanging, so she swiped again, and again, until she was frantic with pace, like a cheetah chasing a firefly.

Another swing and she scratched my heel, causing me to wince and wiggle my toes in agony.My foot slipped from the cuff, and a fear like I have never felt throttled my heart, and dead weight fell. I wasn't dead yet though, just unconscious, for about three seconds.

When I came to I was still falling and surrounded by mist. My body twisted and flipped, giving me a view of what was beneath me for the first time, but the clouds obscured it. I was at the moment, falling thru a heavy overcast that hugged the building, like love handles . I wondered at what point would my life, start flashing before my eyes, instead the words terminal velocity came to mind.

I am no scientist, so I don't have a definition for the term, but I suspect it relates to speed and just at that thought I hit ground. Bang! Real hard. I wasn't dead, but bones were definitely broken. It took two hours for me to be rescued from the window washing scaffold above Beijing and several months for me to recover in a hospital.

I have never visited China and couldn"t tell you how I got here, but when I get back home I am evicting that cat. True story. You can ask the cat if ever you come across her, but I would suggest you avoid that bitch at all cost. As promised I will tell you the story of my wife and the cats she ran off with. Let me get Jim I will be right back.