The Apotheosis of Cato, Visitations by Birds and the Banshee's Wail
Caticus Maximus Rex Julius Quintus Potatoe, AKA "Cato," king of cats, believed to be about 13 years old, has not been seen since mid December. It is believed that he is no longer with us. He of course left no disanimated remains, having, I am sure, achieved apotheosis and ascended whole to the celestial sphere of his peer mythical and legendary beasts.
The last time I saw him was on December 11th. He seemed at that time as spry and himself as ever.
And the last photo I took of him, he had decided to trap me by sleeping cutely on my arm:
Frodo the Magpie
It was this past Friday I was informed of Cato's absence. That afternoon after I got home from work, my friend Tim who lives in my village here, biked over to pick up some beekeeping supplies he'd bought from my work. I was sitting on my front porch reading at the time,as it was a nice sunny summer afternoon. Very shortly after he arrived, he was standing just off the porch talking to me when a magpie swooped down from the roof, passing just in front of him. Magpies are notorious for dive bombing people so as first I thought thats what had happened, but moments later the magpie swooped down from where it had temporarily alighted on the fence down to his feet, and looking up at him cawed insistently like a kitten that wants attention. In fact we noticed it still had a bit of its juvenile downy fluff.
We kneeled down to its level and found it had absolutely no fear of us, perfectly willingly climbing on our feet, our legs, onto our hands. As it was cawing like a hungry kitten the whole time, we thought it might be hungry, and as the trash cans were just at hand one by one we rolled them away from where they'd been revealing a delicious smorgasbord underneath (if you're into that kind of thing) of slugs, worms and beetles. Our pseudocorvid friend (Australian magpies aren't actually corvids (the crow/raven family) though European ones are!) happily snapped up all the beetles, wasn't interested in the slugs, and tried a worm but evidently didn't find it delicious.
We sat and played with the magpie for about half an hour. It would let us pat it, even turn it upside down and scritch its belly. I was just thinking I'd have to make it a nest box to stay snug overnight or smoething when it must have heard or seen its parents or something and it abruptly flew off. In the days since then I've been hoping to see him/her again, calling out hopefully to any likely looking magpies I see around my house but no luck.
I've decided to name him her Frodo, or maybe Froyo (:
Banshee Cat
"What's with the black cat?" Trent my housemate had asked me months ago.
"What black cat?"
"The one thats sometimes sleeping on the couch on the veranda?"
"I've never seen it"
Well this past Saturday (day after hearing about Cato and meeting Froyo) I was sitting in the back yard reading and I heard a cat meowing insistently like it was calling for someone, and a black cat with a floofy tail with just a spot of white on the tip walked around the corner of the garage. I gently called to it and it was a bit startled but didn't completely evacuate the yard. He looked at me very cautiously, and retreated if I tried to approach, but eventually sat down some distance from me for awhile, before wandering off calling again.
Later in the late afternoon / early evening he came by calling out again. I wondered if he was hungry and opened a can of tuna I had, placed it on the ground and retreated and he eagerly ate it. I couldn't see a collar but his fur is a bit long so it could be under the fur. I realized with an eerie chill that he was walking around calling out exactly like he was looking for someone he couldn't find -- Cato used to walk around calling out like that when he couldn't find me, but it didn't sound quite so mournful and desperate when Cato did it. Neighbor cat Bailey died relatively recently, I think my yard had been Bailey's cat-territory, I whimsically entertained the idea that this cat had been a friend of Bailey's and missed him. Or possibly more plausibly, a neighbor had relatively suddenly moved away just days earlier, perhaps they had been looking after this cat.
Several times since then the cat has come by calling out it's lamentations. Hence I've name him/her Banshee / Bansheecat. It's all a bit Edgar Allen Poe this cat with its mournful lamentations coming by searching, searching, just after my beloved Cato had gone missing.