Cats, and two photos

Our basement was a concrete bunker, and not the good kind that you can live in if civilization falls or zombies rise up to eat the earth. It was dank at best, and sopping wet, moldy, and gross at worst. When I was a child and forced to go down there to do laundry, I was scared of the dark, little room on the left that used to house our winter supply of coal and was now housing a healthy pile of slag. I was less frightened of, but not a fan of the little room on the right with shelves that held suspect jars of canned food that my mother was given on occasion. Mice favored that room, and I did not favor them back.

The only benefit of that space was that we could keep our cat litter box down there so it wouldn't stink up the rest of the house. The dogs' peeing and pooping on our carpeting had to carry the burden alone in that respect. We had to keep the door between our dining room and basement cracked open at all times to allow the cats free access to their toilet and this worked fine when the weather was inclement to varying degrees. When it grew warmer, and we left the door to the back yard that led into the basement open so dankness would dry out and become less prone to mildew, things got complicated.

One of my cats, a calico named Zee (technically and confusingly spelled Sie as the name was German), was a world-class hunter. As I explained in the letter I posted a several days ago, this would result in general carnage strewn about the house. I would have taken mouse guts and rabbit heads over the worst of her transgressions one summer day.

Zee brought something up the steps through the basement that was nearly as big as her and quite dark. We were accustomed to seeing her drag some poor animal into the house on a regular basis so this wasn't a huge deal. It was almost funny looking at what she had and guessing what she'd caught this time. "This time" though, it was a black snake which was not as stunned as her usual prey. It was very much alive and she dropped it in the living room.

Like no small number of people, I am very frightened of snakes and I freaked out. My mother said it wasn't a poisonous snake so there was no reason to be too worried, and she was probably right because more than  90% of snakes aren't venomous or dangerous. However, the human brain is designed to be "wrong" in this respect because there is no penalty for being so. It's why we're scared of things in general categories rather than as specific entities.

My mom took matters in hand because I was too paralyzed to act. She cornered the snake (which was looking to escape under the couch) and whacked it with her shoe. The inert snake was then offered back to Zee so she could carry on in her usual manner, but she lost interest in it now that it was dead. These were the cats of my world.

Tito had a cat, too, but his never hunted anything or presented any animals for his inspection. His cat was cuddly, sweet, and prone to meowing a lot. Mine were partially feral hunters who preferred the great outdoors to my petting them. They'd occasionally pee in my bed, but they didn't have that much use for me in general. Somehow, even our pets separated the types of lives we lived even when they were the same animal.

Like sands through the hourglass, these are the cats of our former lives:

 Zee on my bed, on a day when she hadn't urinated on it.

 Zee eating what I provided her, and what she provided herself.

Tito's cat, Malachi, having a yawn.