Of Cat and Dog and Chickens - a Beginning
A snippet about a dog who thought he was a chicken and a cat brought up by chickens.
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Hello ‘story’ people,
A little extra for you on a Saturday morning. We are busy today, car MOT and then 2, yes 2, rugby matches for hubby to enjoy and me to endure. I have a small series of stories to tap into. Ones I’ve written over the years. You had the first one here, and this is the next, not that there is an order, just the next one I chose.
She, a small dark tortoise-shell cat, had once lived with the chickens scrounging what little food she could from the scraps that were regularly thrown to the scratching fowl. He, a small black fluffy dog, had once believed he was a chicken feeling an affinity with their scatter-brained foolishness and their clucky friendship. He had been found abandoned by the roadside, a small sodden imp in a cardboard box and she chose him from the scruffy rescue centre he ended up in. Now they both sat quietly, each to their own, beside the warming Rayburn. Neither turned their thoughts to their salad days, but dozed lost in their respective dreams.
Stirring and sitting straight with an awkward elegance that belied her age, she began her toilette with her usual dignity. Carefully moistening her leg and dragging it, just the once, over her prim triangular face before she became distracted and settled once more into the comfy seat of oak.
He was lost in a dream of rabbits and sticks, of wild winds and sunny breezes. Romping as though still young over the hills and along the stream beds with his companions far behind. His legs twitched on the tiled floor, feet pacing invisible ground, muffled sounds trickling from his mouth as his dreams invaded the real world.
Ultimately heavy feet shattered his rest. Echoes of a human presence travelling though the floor, stirring the dreams from his eyes and the sleep from his body. Ears pricked, his black tail thumped the floor as the familiar hand of the girl reached down to stroke his now greying head. His rabbit chasing days were over and though there were still chickens in the garden they were young and new. His former friends with whom he had once identified had long since served their use before and after death. Chickens had always been in his owners life, always been around. Sat at the bottom of the garden in their coup; free range of course. Locked up safe every night to protect them from the marauding foxes that lived over the lea.
There had been only one cockerel; all that was needed. He certainly ruled the roost, so to speak. Vicious to the extreme, the hens avoided him whenever possible. And if they didn't succumb to his urges they were well plucked and truly punished. But he was beautiful. The proudest cock about. His plumage was supreme, cream white feathers topped at one end by a ruby red comb and a stark yellow eye, and at the other by a brilliant peacock green tail.
As a child, she had been fascinated by those tail feathers and regularly searched the garden for those that may have been carelessly discarded. When she found one or occasionally, magically, two, she often sat playing with their sheen and the sunlight. In her bedroom sat a collection of these gaudy tail feathers held in an old brass trophy that her mother's mother had won at a school sports-day many years before.
It was the insatiable search for these feathers that led her to the discovery of the cat on one of those indescribable, typical, spring/ summer days; it had all happened so long ago she forgot exactly when. Having already found one feather, matted with earth and old age, the child was disappointed and searched fervently for another. At last she caught a glimpse of the darkest green just as she was giving up hope. There in the corner of the coup, furthest from the eggs that she was now carefully gathering, glimmered the faintest hint of a treasure so perfect, so true. But the child's hands were full, five gloriously round, brown and speckled eggs. Each different yet the same. One still warm from its recent delivery, straw clinging to it's fresh dampness. Half running to the house she placed each, rounded end down, in the fridge. Then to her treasure.
Scrambling into the coup the open door sent tawny light onto the musty straw. There in the corner, half buried, the green shimmered. In reaching out her hand she disturbed the cat. It hissed and young claws rasped sharply on her skin. It wasn't surprising that she hadn't seen it, dirty and covered in straw, cowering deep in the shadows, perfectly camouflaged. Reaching out again, not for the feather, her aim went further back, into the shadows to the thing that seemed like a shadow itself. It rose, wild and angry, spiting savagely and the child drew back, the skin on her torn hand throbbing.
That had been their first encounter that day. There was to be another.
Later she went back with her father, safe in his shadow, covering herself in the growing gloom of dusk. Unlike the child, the father strode strong and firm to the coup and reached into its depths quickly with no time for the childish ceremonies the girl kept. A howl from inside preceded the frightened calls of the hens and the fevered crowing of the cock as the cat ran amok within before bolting out and into a small tree nearer the house. The light was fading fast.
How the father rescued the cat and how long it took the child remembers not, but scratched deep in her memory was the feeling of finally holding the trembling creature in her arms as it clawed at her flesh bringing fresh warm blood to the surface. The night was chilling and the animal escorted safely indoors.
Now the cat now old and thin again, curled on the oak chair and wheezed. The once wild creature was now tamed. Her coat once again ragged, but still keeping some lustre in its ginger-black hues. She was a very pretty cat, 'petite' some said.
The aging dog stood and stretched, his dark fur wrinkling. He nosed his owner’s hand and she stroked him thoughtfully, before he settled again before the fire.
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Oh, I seem to have something in my eye. What a lovely story Tamsin. I wonder who the little girl grew up to be?
A beautiful depiction of the nature of animals and the lives they live, Tamsin x