cats and dogs

It is my habit to wander the house at night while my room mates are asleep. I break up this practice with various alone-time activities: watching old movies, writing stories, and smoking cigarettes in quiet places around the house — my favorites being the back porch and the upstairs bathroom window.

Last night, while standing in the unlit bathroom, I was blowing smoke through the open window when I was unexpectedly thrown off by the long, shrill screams of some nearby animal in distress. At first I thought it was a squirrel being skinned alive — as the cries were that desperate, that unnerving. But I didn’t think too long of it. Often times a local cat will scream its head off in the middle of the night; as there are dozens of liberated house cats in this neighborhood and they are always asserting their dominance over one another. S, with this in mind, I ignored the screams and continued to blow smoke out the bathroom window.

Seconds later I was distracted by another, gentler noise rising from the sidewalk below. This one was far less acidic than the first. It was a familiar sound. A sound I’d heard many times throughout childhood—the jingle of a pet’s collar approaching at a rapid pace. Because of my vantage point, I was able to see through the hedge and make out a large portion of  sidewalk below. So I decided to wait for the owner of the collar to pass by. Expecting a bloodied house cat, I was surprised when a large brown dog came prancing into view. His tail was wagging, and there was something heavy in his mouth, something furry. It hung limp between his jaws.

As he passed the clearing, I saw what caused the jingling sound. It wasn’t his collar, but the collar of a fluffy, white cat. He had broken its neck, and its tags were slapping against his smiling teeth. The tags were green, and they were fastened to a thin turquoise collar. Even in the dark I could tell it was turquoise — the cat’s fur was that clean, that illuminating.

Moments later, the dog disappeared from sight and I was left to imagine what would happen next to the body of the broken cat. This, I felt, was worse than seeing it flop and dangle between the dog’s jaws.

Afterwards, I smoked another cigarette before leaving the bathroom and heading downstairs to search the kitchen for unclaimed liquor. I found two beers in the back of the refrigerator and drank them in succession. Still, I couldn’t shake the image. I kept seeing the dog prance by, and wondered if I would have been as affected had it been a squirrel, or a bird, and not a domesticated house cat. I realized I wouldn’t have. Which only made me feel worse.

It was after four when I finally fell to sleep