From the Mud

It is quiet in the country. This morning there is no sunny yoke on the fields, no dawn angel light. You hear there is rain in the rafters, and it weighs on the grass beside the porch. You hear it move beyond the fields, carried by the wind, and off in the distance on the tops of trees. The birds are quiet too. It is morning, but they are quiet, and you are up and awake but you don’t make any noise either. You squat on the bottom of the front porch steps, with your back to the screen door. The rain just wets your rubber boots. The sky is grey and frowns at you.

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The barn’s not far off from the porch. It squats back at you, sinking in the mud. It’s an old barn, and the wood is splintered. It's been sinking there on that bit of land since time eternal. There are holes in the walls where the ferals hop in and out of the cold, and it is cold in the rain in the morning. 

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The rain has been settling into the ground and loose straw. It gives way to sopping, squishing sounds beneathe your feet when you move closer. You see something lying in the mud next to one of the barn’s rotting walls. It is orange and wet, and looks very dead. Beside it is a curious worm which prods with its one curious head the toes of the small dead thing. It wriggles past the dead thing’s nose. They both are unaware: they do not care about the rain or cold. The worm knows nothing of the thing it’s run into, and the thing may as well be dead. But you see the thing breathe. Its back is pressed against the rot wood under cover of the grass and the high, slant barn roof. Its ears are curled tightly around its pitiful face. It wears a pinched stiff and stubborn scowl, and it would fit in your one hand if you felt compelled to cradle it. 

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You don’t take in strays, it’s not your way. It wouldn’t do, your parents, your higher authorities, wouldn’t allow it, and you know this. You know strays get sick easily, they carry disease, and worms of their own, they require too much care on your part. Ma has told you to stop fooling with them. She is gentle when she tells you, most of the time, but she has said she hates the things and they’re no better than dirt if they can’t quell the rats. She doesn’t like the extra mouths to feed, and you know this tiny creature can’t earn it. This one is too small to catch anything, not a vole or mole or mouse.

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The strays get attacked too, so you know the rest of the world hates them just as much as your Ma. They get attacked by mockingbirds when they stare too intently at the nests under the porch awning, or when they stalk the shadows of the tomato cages where the birds like to perch. And Ma likes the mockingbirds. You’ve seen Ma bat at the strays with her broom, or hose them down as they scream and spring back over the fence into the fields. Sometimes they’re chased by the owl in the barn, or by the rats in the raspberry bushes with their nasty teeth and hissing whiskers. You’re never awake to see this, but you hear the scuffle, the dire struggle between teeth and fur and dirtied claw, as the creatures screech in the night outside of your window. And when the strays are injured from their pointless warmongering, you know they take their injured selves into the heather or farther away into the woods and die pointlessly in the charming pink of morning. You know this because when you wake up you see the mocking birds taking what pieces they can carry to feed their squabbling babies. 

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So. You know that the life of a stray cat is stupid. This is why you don’t take them in. There was never any point in bending the rule. But your morning is empty. And, being young, you are curious like the worm, but you’re not blind or aimless. You’re above it all in your rubber boots. Not even the rain can touch you.

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You decide, why not poke the belly. Not with a stick, but with your finger. Its hair is a soggy disappointment. You think, I wish it was cuter, nice to look at, like those stuffed dolls in the baby’s room with the powder pink bow collars and glassy blue eyes, the ones that sit so still and with fur so fine you want to poke them just to see if they’re alive.

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