Crumpled Cats

Posted on September 13, 2002 in Cats

Live with three cats and you begin seeing crouching felines everywhere out of the corners of your eyes. A white shirt tossed in a corner turns into Ambrose. Make it darker: it becomes Tracy or Virginia. In the right light, the most outrageous and uncatlike colored rags transmogrify. I mistook a turquoise washcloth that Lynn had dropped on the bathroom floor for Tracy. I wondered why she didn’t cry for water. Then I turned and saw her ghost for what it was.

It is when Tracy sleeps in the door to the bedroom that I am most likely to mistake her for some article of clothing and step on her.

She’s taken to laying on a corner of the bed where I am sure to kick her in my sleep. Yesterday, while I was sitting on the bed putting on my shoes and socks, I noticed her in that corner, holding her right paw at a strange, limp angle before her neck. I thought “Oh no! Has she broken her leg? Did I smash it myself while gadding about in my tiger-striped walking shoes?” She stared at me as I touched it lightly. She gave no squawk. I pinched the bit of foreleg between my index finger and thumb. A slight tug demonstrated that it was attached to her collar. I freed the claw. The old cat retrieved her paw from me and tucked it beneath herself.