A Well-Shod Foot

The cat’s name is Spuds. The old man who’d found her thought she looked like the color of Yellow Finn potatoes. He’d pulled the mewing, trembling kitten out from under a bramble on a roadside. He stroked her fur with work-rough hands, looked into her gold-green eyes, and took her home.

Spuds had a good life with the old man: She curled up on the rug by the wood stove in winter, dozed on the screened porch in the summer. Spuds loved the old man; they understood each other. But one morning when she went up to his room to inquire about breakfast, something was different. She jumped onto the bed, stood on his chest, and peered at him. She could sense him, but he wasn’t there. She meowed, calling to him. Then she saw a picture in her mind: it was he, and his eyes were blue, dazzling, and loving. Then the image receded and he was gone, as was the sense of him being in the room. Spuds looked at him one last time and left the room.

Four days passed during which Spuds clawed her way through a bag of cat food and found that fresh toilet water wasn’t completely undrinkable.

Then one person came and then a cluster of them—people Spuds had never seen before. They pawed the old man’s possessions, argued with each other, and carried things out of the house. Spuds watched. A woman noticed Spuds and picked her up in one hand, dangling her. Her bangle bracelets clanged together as she walked to the door and dropped Spuds outside. Spuds sniffed the air and turned to go back inside. The woman blocked Spuds’ way with a well-shod foot. “You’re free now kitty, go away.” She closed the door with a thud.

Spuds looked for a long while at the closed door. Then she walked down the driveway. Before turning onto the road, she looked back at the house. The windows glinted in the sun.

to be continued

(c) 2023 Carolyn Cott