“I’m not going back home. It’s over. I’ve had enough. All I do is work. I’m too old now, and fat. The rats are no longer scared of me. That’s okay. I did my part. He could do more cleaning his home, not leaving garbage in the kitchen for weeks, washing wares, and himself. But no, it’s my fault. Fine! I’m gone. That’s it.”
An hour later, and with much luck it seems navigating notorious alleys, outsmarting prowling pit bulls, and negotiating heavy traffic, human and vehicular, it arrives the neighbourhood park. Teeming as usual on a clear spring day, it settles under a baobab. “So, what is next? I’m tired and hungry.” Just then, a young man cruises by on his bike, and throws what appears to be a half-devoured roasted chicken breast in its direction, to its patent glee.
“I thought compassion was dead.”
“You’re sure right.”
“Who for Pete’s sake is that?”
“Just a friend,” a lanky middle-aged man emerges from the other side of the tree, apparently befuddled to find a cat busy.” What a strange world,” he mutters returning to his side of the tree.
“Life is good.” The fellow re-emerges even more patently fazed, but it is on its way, stomping across the field, to where it seems wherever its legs take it. “That’s right.”
“What’s right, that you wouldn’t stop snoring unless you get treated for your sleep apnoea?”
“I never said that”
“You just did”
They look at each other, and then round. It is there at the other end of the bench, looking away from them. They get up and leave, a few more inches apart than when they walked there holding hands minutes earlier. “Why don’t you just get treated and stop giving her grief?” They both look back, clearly puzzled, their pace quicker.
Just as it shuffles up apparently ready to leave, a man in baggy pants that expose his chaffed ankles slumps into the bench his backpack tossed barely missing its tail. “I just don’t get it. You are sitting quietly minding your own business and someone comes and wants to chop your tail off.” It then shifts sideways closer to the armrest.
The man starts to cough, then lights a cigarette. He coughs thrice for each puff, propelled with each cough a dense mucous, its tinge yellowish-green, and sometimes blood-stained “This is pathetic. You are in serious trouble mate. You need help.” It is now looking at the man, who seems to be attending to something in the inner pocket of his jacket.
He soon pulls out a small bottle, opens it, clearly in a hurry and gulps its contents at once. “Lord have mercy, this is really serious.” The man belches massively straight at it, as he leans over to unzip the bag. “Excuuuuse me,” it dodges artfully and hops off.
“I didn’t realize cats have started to speak,” an elderly lady strolling by with her dog, observes, the dog barking at the man. “C’mon now, it’s okay, let’s go,” she says, tugging the leash to redirect her dog.
Smoke bellows from behind nearby woods. It hurries in its direction. The barbecue is ready and paper plates are filling fast. It perches behind a couple, away from view under the canopy of discarded cartoons. “I hate garbage.” Its whiskers seem on alert, its tongue coil ready. It seems a long wait, its frustration welling when he says, “Let’s keep the leftovers. They always come in handy”
“Did someone move their bowel this morning?”
“Oh yes. I did.”
“What?”
“True, I did.”
“Did what?” her impatience with him, quite obvious.
“He just farted” Its left claws still across its nostrils.
They both look in its direction, then at each other, clearly in wonder but say nothing, slowly turning round apparently to continue packing up, the man briefly looking back again as if to be sure no one is really there.
It is indeed, no longer there, lured somewhere else by seemingly more generous minds. Not long after, it is on its way again, on its journey it says to anywhere but home. “Holly smokes! What on earth is going on over there?” It is in someone’s yard, one contiguous with the park, taunted there by a rat, about its size, even as it has just had a meal.
“So you think you have the right to be fat. I am going to teach you a lesson or two on keeping fit,” it hollers in hot pursuit, only to stop abruptly itself chased with a baseball bat by a clearly irate man hitherto chasing a woman round the yard.
“No cats allowed in here, okay?”
“What about rats?”
The man stops, panting, and then a face-off ensues. It is as if it is waiting for his response. The man takes a closer look at what he must be wondering is not happening. He turns round to call someone in the house.
“Did you hear me? What about rats? The man swirls round, even more plainly enraged, as it seems it also is. He waves his bat in the air striking viciously but hitting the ground as it leaps off harms way, but still confronting the man. “That was a fat rat.” Growling, it disappears into the woods.
“At least I could have shown I could still work. I am not too old to make a living. I am not accepting that. I should be able to work until I drop, so long as I deliver. Now I am homeless because I’m old. Nobody respects you when you are old. Nobody cares about all the work you have done, all the good you have done, all the rats, all the…” It is moving slowly now, its head down, not even looking where it heads, just moaning, venting, apparently piqued, uncertain, if over the meal lost, or its ego, it later admits.
“I’ll survive, and be fine. I’ve got a few more lives left. I’ll be alright.” It is doubtless far from home, and has no intention to go back there. It says home is anywhere you are happy, which it admits should not be spending the night under a bridge, but says it would bounce back, and be happy again, working and living on its own terms.
