With That Picture in Mind, She Could Sleep

Spuds returned to the alley where she had lived with her kittens and sniffed the air, smelling their scents. She walked out the alley and never returned.

She spent her nights wandering, half-heartedly hunting for food, nibbling at tidbits in dumpsters. Spuds slept during the day wherever she felt reasonably safe, tucking herself behind boxes and dumpsters or in a cluster of trees and shrubs in a park. She had difficulty sleeping without her kittens to curl around, but there was one hopeful image that allowed her to drift toward sleep: kind hands taking care of her kittens, giving them food, water, care. Her first thought upon waking was of her kittens: the way the sun shone on their fur, their ticked whiskers alternating white and tan to the tips, their stubby tails, fuzzy and broad at the base and tapering.

One morning when Spuds was searching for a place to sleep, she wandered into a part of the city where women’s high-heeled shoes clicked purposefully on the sidewalk and men’s overcoat tails flew behind them in the wind. Shiny, large cars purred along the street. She sniffed the air and followed the scent to an alley with a fragrant-smelling dumpster. At the end of the alley she noticed a mouse moving along a wall. Noiselessly and slowly, with her ears flattened to disguise herself, she moved toward the mouse, pounced, and missed. Only then did she notice the dog. He was stretching and keeping a wary eye on her.

To be continued

(c) Carolyn Cott 2023