cat

I know where I was on August the 25^th, 2023, because I have a photo. Not of me, not at all, no. I got a partial photo of a cat. Grey, striped, with a white shoulder, it ran away as I drove down the driveway, and for reasons I cannot explain, I snapped a photo.

I called my neighbors and they, too, saw this cat, but it ran away from them. A stray, a feral, it really didn’t matter at all for nothing small and helpless is going to survive out here. Coyotes, bobcats, owls, hawks, venomous snakes, alligators, foxes, and humans with guns who might think a bullet is a mercy for a stray all live here. Starvation, if it lived, parasites, heat, and a host of stinging insects awaited this animal until something killed it.

            There was no way I could take a cat it. Wrex Wyatt had a dislike for small mammals.

Several days later I looked out of the front door window and there was this cat, walking up my mama’s wheelchair ramp as if it meant to simply walk right through the front door. I opened the door and the cat fled. I was too shocked to get a photo, but I did start putting out food, and the food began to disappear.

            I’ve been hungry. Not just simply wanting to eat, but not having food and not knowing where food was going to come from, or when. Whatever else may be true, no animal I can get food to is going to feel that.

            For reasons I won’t not try to explain at the moment, I started calling this cat, “Aqaba.”

Pronounced Ack-a-baa. I would go out on the porch with the bowl of food and sing out, “Aqaba! Aqaba! Kitty, kitty, kitty!” and put the bowl down.

            A week later, I could see him hiding in the woods near the house and when I called he came out, a little bit, and then stopped.

            Eventually, he made his way into the garden to wait. One day I called him and he came running out of the woods and stopped in the garden, and watched me, and crept a little closer.

            And this was as far as Aqaba would get. I talked to him, sang to him, kept food and water out, but there was a line this kitty was not crossing.

            The last week of August I began setting live traps for Aqaba, but he wanted to part of them at all, and refused to go in. On August the 30^th, hurricane Adalia slammed into South Georgia, creating more flooded areas and knocking down trees. The power went out. Somewhere in the woods, Aqaba Thomas, the Cat Unexpected, had either lived or died. I set out food for a couple of days and sang for him. The food was untouched. I waited. There was no sign of Aqaba at all.

Take Care,

Mike