Dandelion....

Encounters With a Grey Kitten

I was walking by a beautiful street, terribly upset with tears in my eyes. The avenue's bounty wasn't enough to cheer me up. But you know when you love nature and when nature loves you back. In the middle of the street, I stumbled upon a grey kitten on this beautiful, sunny, Saturday morning. He was the furriest, cleanest and most playful grey stray kitten I had ever seen, with whiskers twice the size of his face. Had I met baby Thomas? In that case, where's Jerry? ;)

I fell in love with him instantly, and it looked like he forged a connection with me too. It feels weird to be able to speak a language without really understanding what you are saying. The kitten and I mewed for some time. I wish I had any sense of what he took from our conversation. He obviously wanted to play with me, but as the scared little kitten he was, he was wary of me and kept his distance. 

They say cats place other mammals in the food chain by the mammal’s height, relative to their own. Meaning, they fear animals taller than them. I tested the corollary of this hypothesis by crouching low, to see if this would ease his fear. I sat down still with my arms wrapped around my legs. The kitten moved closer, but ran away at the slightest noise or movement around us.

He tried to come closer with his eyes fixated on me, only to run away from me. He ran under the safety of a car, stopped and looked at me for some time, as if evaluating whether or not I could be trusted. He then came close again, but bounced away into a bush of ferns, stopped and watched me again. This went on for quite some time. He obviously wanted to play with me, for he kept observing me, following his every move, curious to see what I would do next. He certainly found me a better playmate than his fellow companions - a suspicious, grumpy old white cat who eyed me narrowly and a grumpier and older fearless black cat who seemed bored with all of us. Who wouldn't wanna play with them! ;)

I wished I could stay there all day, but following an inexplicable goodbye, I left. He followed me at a distance for some time. Then, he finally galloped back to his plaything - a dried up, fallen branch of a tree.

I passed the same street the next day. Crouched up in the lawn, the kitten was preying on a squirrel, ready to pounce. What’s funny is that the kitten and the squirrel were nearly the same size. Never before have I seen a bolder squirrel or a more focussed kitten. For it looked like both were preying each other, unblinking. The kitten was in some serious hunting mood. But not only did his prey hold the higher ground (up a tree trunk), given its size and awareness of the kitten, it was difficult to hunt too. The kitten could calculate this, and so he held his ground.

I tried to distract the kitten with a little mewing. To my great surprise, both of them were distracted and turned to look at me. Cats are indeed intelligent creatures, for the recognition in the kitten's eyes was striking. He remembered me :D, Yayyy! The next five minutes were pure pleasure, unexpected and bewildering. Both the kitten and the squirrel would look at me and then resume preying each other, calculating every move of the other, then back to me again. It was most peculiar! The kittens expression read "its her again. Hmm, What's she up to today?" And the squirrel seemed to wonder "who's this third party? Who's side is she on?"

How I wish I could watch them play, all day. How I wish I could take them both home and pet them. Tearing myself away from them, I said my goodbyes and moved on. I hope I see the kitten again next week when I pass through the same street.

The departed childhood, the restricted adulthood! 
I may be the most evolved and dominant species to walk the earth,
But unlike this ball of fur, I am not really free to jump up and down a tree, chase birds, and dare to challenge a mammal large enough to hunt me, anymore.