A TALE OF TWO CATS (Part I)

“The cat’s dead” She said to me, her eyes dripping with tears.
“How did it happen?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I walked in my room and there she was, lying on the floor.”
“I’m sorry. We should bury it.”
“You’re right.” She replied.

We exited onto our garden and crouched near a mound of dirt underneath the tallest tree. I picked up a large, flat rock and dug a hole with it. She held the cat in her arms. Her face was moist and her eyes bloodshot from all the crying. I couldn’t bring myself to cry.

“Are you sure we should bury it?” She stopped and asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I don’t know. Maybe we should cremate it, throw its ashes somewhere she loved.”
“Where? Like your closet?” I smiled, trying to alleviate the sadness around us.
“Stop. No, I guess maybe in the bushes over there.”
“If you want, it’s your cat. You choose.”
“It’s your cat too.”

I guess she was right. I mean, when we first started dating, she owned the cat. I had nothing to do with it. But as the years passed by I got fondly close with it. I think the cat didn’t like me much though. Yet, we stood there silently. Both on our knees looking at the dead cat.

“What should we do?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”

Her voice broke and she started crying once more. I held her in my arms. I could feel my shoulder getting wet with sadness. As I looked at the lifeless small corpse laying on the dug-up dirt, I still couldn’t bring myself to cry, and I couldn’t figure out why. This was the first time I had an experience with death. It felt surreal, oddly surreal. It was after a few minutes of contemplation that I figured out why I could not cry. This was not our cat.

“My love.” I grabbed her shoulder abruptly.
“Yes?” she answered, startled.
“This is not Cleo.”
“Stop with your jokes. I’m not in the mood. I don’t know if you realise this but our cat is dead.”
“This is not our cat. Look.”

Cleo was white and grey with piercing blue eyes. A bit overweight but not too fat, she had relatively short paws. But most importantly, she had a black spot the size of a grape on her right leg. The dead cat in front of us did not.

“Cleo has a black spot on her right paw right?”
“I guess.”
“What do you mean ‘I guess’. It’s your cat isn’t it?”
“Okay, yes she does.”
“Look at this cat. Look at it closely.”
“I am.”
“Do you see a black spot?
“No. But it’s on her other side, no?”

I took the dead cat and delicately flipped it over. Just like I expected: no black spot.

“See, nothing there. This isn’t Cleo.” I stood up, putting my arms around my head.
“How is this possible? Who would ever do such a thing?”
“I don’t know.”
“But, if this isn’t Cleo, then where is Cleo?” She stood up as well.
“That’s what we have to figure out.”
“And what do we do with this?” She said, pointing at the dead cat.
Well, we should call someone, for start.”

I grabbed my laptop from inside the house, took a seat at the table and opened up my browser. ‘What to do if you find a dead cat?’. I clicked search and about five-hundred million results were loaded on my screen in the span of a second. I clicked the first link. There are, according to cats.org.uk, five steps when you find a dead cat.

1. Move the cat to safety
2. Take the cat to the nearest vet.
3. The vet will see if the cat is chipped, and if so will contact the owners.
4. In the case you cannot visit a vet, you should call Cats protection.
5. In the case you cannot do any of that, call dead animal removal services.

“Yikes, dead animal removal services. Who in their right mind chooses to work in that?” I said to myself.

I closed my laptop and went outside. She was still standing there, looking at the dead cat.

“You should stop looking at it. It won’t come back to life.”
“Maybe it’s not dead.”
“I think it’s dead.”
“So, what should we do?”
“Do you have Dr. Z’s number on you?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Cat website says we should probably take it there.”

She gave me the number and I dialled it, placing the phone to my ear.

— “Hi doctor, yes sorry. It’s Oliver on the phone. Yes, Julie’s boyfriend. Sorry, we’ve had a tough day. Our cat’s missing. Yes, Cleo. And we found a dead cat in our house. Looks just like Cleo but it’s not. It doesn’t have that black spot Cleo has. Yeah, so we have a dead cat on our hands, and it’s not our cat. Yes, we have that somewhere I think. Okay we’re on our way.”

I turned to her.

“We have to put it in a box. Do you still have that Nike box from the shoes you bought the other day?”
“Yes.” She answered, sniffling. “It’s in our room, in the closet.”

I went inside, and headed towards our room. I entered, opened the closet, and got the box, running back outside.

“Okay, help me out.”

We crouched near the dead cat, we each grabbed a side and placed it in the open shoe-box.

“This is the weirdest day ever.” She said, as we carried the box.
“Eh, had weirder days” I answered jokingly.

She grabbed the keys and we got in the car. I kept the box on my legs as she drove towards the vet’s office. It must have been the longest seven minutes of my life. We quickly pulled the car into the small parking lot in front of the vet-office and rushed inside. She looked stunned as I dropped the box onto her desk.

“I’m guessing the body is inside.” Dr. Z said.
“Good guess, doctor.” I answered.

She frowned at me and opened the box, carefully grabbing the cat and placing it on her exam table. Dr. Z examined the dead cat, first scanning for a chip.

“The cat belongs to a family in the area. The Evans, it says here. Cat’s name is Scatters.”
“How creative…” I whispered

Julie hit me with her elbow.

“So what should we do now?” Julie asked.
“Well, you can leave the cat to me. I suggest you go see the family, maybe they’ll know something about Cleo. I’ll take care of the formalities.”
“Thank you doctor.”
“Yes, thanks for the help.” I added.

We waved goodbye and took off, closing the door behind us. It was about a ten minute car ride when we arrived at the house number given to us by Dr. Z. The house was one story high but quite long. Two windows and a red door draped its facade. Julie got out of the car first and I followed. She stopped and looked at me.

“I don’t know if I can do this.” She said, grabbing my hand.
“Its okay. I’ll do it.”

I walked up the two small steps leading to the entrance door. I knocked twice. Sounds of footsteps emerged from the distance and slowly made their way towards the front door, which opened slowly. A tall old man wearing a red polo, baggy jeans, and rectangular spectacles stood in front of me. The wrinkles on his forehead seemed to indicate he was a regular frowner.

“Yes, can I help you?” The old-man grunted.
“Hi, sorry to bother you. My name’s Oliver, this is Julie.”
“Hello,” he took a step towards us. “What is this for?”
“Well,” I hesitated and continued, “i’m sorry but we come bearing bad news.”

The old-man’s eyes began to frown behind his reflective spectacles.

“We found a cat this morning in our house. A dead cat, that is. I got home from work and Julie found it, laying down, petrified on the floor.”

I could see that the old-man understood perfectly well where I was going with this.

“And at first we thought it was ours. I mean it looked exactly like ours. But it wasn’t. We decided to bring it to the vet, and well she told us it belonged to you”
“Where is it?” He asked with a cold, broken voice.

I flinched and replied in confusion.

“Where is what?”
“The cat, you fool. Scatters.” He let-out in a typical old-angry-man voice.
“Ah yes. I’m sorry. The cat, well, Scatters, is at the vet.”
“My wife is going to be broken up about this.” The old-man added.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Julie broke her silence for the first time since we had arrived.
“My condolences, Mr. Evans.”
“I knew this would happen.” The old-man said suddenly.

It caught me aback.

“What do you mean?”

The old-man grunted and looked at me. I decided to ignore it and focus on Cleo.

“Also, sir, we wanted to ask you something else, if you don’t mind.”
“Yes? What is it?”
“Well, our cat, Cleo, is missing. She looks a bit like Scatters but she’s got a black spot on her right paw. Last time we saw her was yesterday afternoon, and so we were wondering if you had maybe come across it.”

The old-man paused, shifted his head around and then back towards us. He stepped away from the entrance and invited us in.

“Come inside. It’s warmer.”
“It would be our pleasure, thank you.” Julie said.

I followed them inside the house.

“I knew this day would just get weirder” I whispered to her as we were brought inside and walked through a small hallway into the living room.

The room smelled and looked of old. Everything — the decorations, the furniture, the picture frames were worn out with vast memories. I felt as if we were entering an antique shop; a house of many treasures. In the middle of it stood one large maroon leather couch and two red armchairs; they seemed to be reclinable. I always wanted one of those. Julie and I took a sit on the couch, as gently directed by the old-man. He, however, took a seat on one of the armchairs. The late morning sunlight was peeking through the windows, shining on his face. A floral bouquet of violets, roses, orchids, and daisies stood strong inside a water-vase. The flowers seemed untouched by the hand of death. On the contrary, they looked blessed by the spells of spring; their colours taken from a rainbow palette, iridescent and radiating.

They stood out strongly amongst the murky tone of the olden furniture.

“Anything to drink?” The old man asked.

“We’re okay. Thank you.”
“Very well, then.”

The old-man reclined into his chair. His back seemed to be absorbed by the fabric; it was like he was absorbed into a black-hole, a void to another world, another dimension.

“So, you say your cat looks like Scatters?”

I looked at Julie, waiting to see if she wanted to answer. She took her time and replied.

“Yes, well they’re the same colour, their eyes are both blueish, but Cleo has a…”

The old-man’s voice broke her stride.

“A black spot, yes. On her right paw right?”

“Yes, that’s correct” said Julie.

I could see her eyes began to fill with tiny waterfalls. She had the most beautiful of eyes. A sea of olive green, with soft waves of clay orange appearing when rays of light break through her iris. Apart from a slight snort, the old-man stayed silent. I began to feel uncomfortable. Juliet and I sitting on an unknown man’s couch while he stared at us. I could feel the cold shivers take over my skin.

“You said, earlier, that you knew this was coming. What did you mean by that exactly?”

His stare did not change, but something in his lips slowly dropping indicated his hesitation.

“Yes. Well I meant that Scatters was old, you know. I knew he would die soon. We’ve had him for eleven years.”
“That’s a long time.” I paused. There was something I wanted to ask — I contemplated whether I should, and then I did.
“Sir why exactly did you invite us into your home?”
“Oliver!” Juliet gasped.

Her eyes flared like lasers and turned towards me.

“I’m sorry sir, Oliver tends to speak before he thinks.”
“Oh that’s okay dear. It’s a fair question.”

She smiled nervously as he continued.

“Well, apart from the fact that it was cold and an old man like me gets sick very easily, I did want to share something with you. Something important”
“And what is that?” I asked.
“Well, a few months ago, not too far from this neighbourhood, cats began to disappear.”

I wondered if the old-man was being serious or just messing with me as a punishment for my misplaced question.

“What do you mean disappear? Also, how come I’ve never heard about this?” I declared.

The old-man grinned, revealing perfectly white teeth.

“There’s a reason for that, you see. The story never came out. Apart from ‘missing cat’ signs stuck on lamp posts and stop-signs, no newspaper ever wrote about it.”

“I suppose no one cares about cats disappearing, it happens all the time, it’s trivial. I’ve never seen any articles mentioning these kind of things.”
“Sure, you may be right. But this time, ten cats disappeared around the same week, around the same area. I don’t believe that’s a coincidence. Do you think so?”

“I suppose not. What happened to the cats? Were they ever found?
“No cat was ever found. No bodies found, nothing.”
“I see. So what you’re trying to tell me is that Cleo’s disappearance has to do with all of this. You think someone is just out here freely stealing cats?”

“I’m not saying its a fact, but it’s something to think about”

There was no way this was true. Who would ever do this? Then, out of nowhere, not sure why, I burst in uncontrollable laughter. This day had been so emotional I began to break down nervously. The shock, the stress, the fear, and the confusion of all of this accumulated in the loudest laughing spur that I came across in the last five years of my life.

“What the fuck is happening today?”