Climbing to the moon

I was sitting on the porch steps, rubbing my eyes and sipping my pre-dawn coffee when Colonel Hoppy jumped onto the tiles a few feet from me. He sat on his haunches and regarded me carefully between licks of his paw.

“Good morning, Hoppy. How are you today?”

He paused to stare at me as Lady Gray walked up the sidewalk. His paw received a few more cursory licks, then he spoke, in his quiet and raspy voice.

“You never speak directly. Why?”

The sleek gray mother chimed in as she sidled past me. “He is right. You ask about our health and happiness, and we know that you are being true, but you do not say what is in your heart. Your people seldom do.”

I took another mouthful of coffee and considered this, listening to the wind in the palm fronds. I hate it when they are right.

I looked away into the indigo dawn as I answered. “I’m not very happy.” A slow gaze burned into my neck. “Okay, I am really fucking sad, okay? Is that better?”

Hoppy kept his usual distance, while Gray rubbed my arm. “Are you sad for the kit?”

I turned to my right, to the spot on my porch where the tiny black and white kitten had surprised me one morning. I know most of the cats by name, or by face at least, but this one was a stranger: very small, and very young. And very loud, too, plaintively crying for food as he danced his figure-eights between my ankles. It was when I bent to stroke him that I saw the huge, festering wounds on his shoulder and neck; he had been attacked by a dog and escaped.

I gathered him up, swaddled him in towels, and brought him to the vet. Although they had little hope, he had improved for over a week, sufficiently so that on his third visit the doctors were amazed to learn that this was the same scraggly moglet I had brought in a week earlier. He was walking around without pain, eating, and was tremendously affectionate. He wasn’t strong enough to jump on the couch, though, so he would reach up and tap my leg until I would pick him up and let him rest in my lap. Sometimes I would recline, and he would walk up my body and lay beside me — a tiny, frail ball.

“I did everything I could for him, Gray, Hoppy, you know that, don’t you? It took him to the doctor, I gave him medication, I cleaned his wounds. And he was getting better! I even named him.”

Hoppy scratched, tilted his orange head, yawned, then replied. “Your names are not our names. We know who we are. When you care enough to name us, we are bound together. It is the way of the naming of things; it is what your people do.”

I sighed. “He liked it when I told him stories, you know. I told him about Max the Giant’s terrible accident and how he survived, and about when bossy HobGoblin was just a kitten and afraid of everything, and about brave BadFoot who had to go to the doctor because of an inconsiderate child. He would curl up and listen to my voice and fall asleep, purring.”

I took another sip of coffee. It was stone cold.

“He died, of course. I woke up on the couch, and he was curled at my feet, not breathing. I didn’t want to believe it. I just kept stroking his fur, hoping I was wrong.”

“Yes, we know. We saw him leave your house in the starlight.”

I wiped my eyes and stared at the sky. “Lady Gray, Colonel Hoppy, what happens to your people when they die? Where do they go?”

Gray walked down the steps and lay on the sidewalk in front of me. “Sometimes we go someplace else, into another life. Sometimes we just go away, and none know what happens next. Sometimes…”

She stopped her soft, high song and looked at me. “You made the kit safe and happy and comfortable. He did not end his time in pain and suffering. He was loved. Do not be sad.”

Hoppy broke in with a low growl. “I did not know this kit, but when I saw him walk from your house into the night sky his ears were up and his tail was high and his dark eyes shone. He will be back when he is ready.”

“He walked into the sky?”

“Yes, that is what kits do when they leave their body. They walk into the sky and climb to the moon.”

Hoppy jumped down from the porch into the tall grass, and Lady Gray rose to her feet, stretching luxuriously. I followed her lead and dragged myself up to go back inside.

“Why the moon?”

Hoppy looked at Gray, who turned back toward me. “So they can watch what happens here, of course. Nightwalkers love stories, and kits love them most of all. That is why this small one came to you when he was hurt. For your love, and for your stories.”

Hoppy sniffed loudly. “No, we go because dogs cannot reach us there. Why do you think they howl so when the moon is full? They are frustrated that they can’t hurt us again.”

As they walked away into the grass, I heard Gray’s soft voice. “Now he has you telling stories, too. The world changes, old tom, the world changes.”

[For Legionnaire Ochito, and for Laura]

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