Poma Otoroncopas

Lion and Tigers

La Grita

There were cats here when I came, mostly semi-feral - they took food but ran if people tried to touch them. One thin young femme, though, was different; she'd come up the walk trailing meowls and meeting my eyes, and she'd submit to petting. In fact, she seemed to like it. Pretty soon I was saving scraps for her when I came back from town, and before too long I was feeding her. She was so intensely verbal I called her La Grita, She Who Cries Out. 

The Barriga-Terran's told me her owners, next door, were drunk by seven in the morning and pretty much neglected to feed or care for her. I said I'm not nailed down securely enough to take responsibility for anything, but still. What the heck. I missed cats.

Pretty soon she was feeding and sleeping inside. Then she was pregnant. She was like thirteen in cat years, the little jezebel, and was getting more clingy every day; a symptom of a cat on the verge of parturition. I was about to go on the road for a month in a month, so decided not to let her litter in my place. Anyway I'm too old to be a daddy now.

But she'd lay on my chest licking my face, kneading and needing and pleading in cat, and getting wet in the rear. When I saw she was about to blow, I put her out. A couple hours later she was back, but now distant and a little aloof. She'd done the thing somewhere out there.

I had to go the States for a week to renew my visa and pick up the mail; when I came back, I found four black kittens in a box in the chicken coop. 

The trick with kittens, I am instructed, is to get them used to the human touch so that they don't grow up feral. This I did. I petted them and took them out of the box for a walk and when they were old enough, fed them. I would meow as I approached and they came to recognize me as The Giant Food Thing and meowed back. 

They all looked alike, so I painted them with yellow splotches on different parts of their furry bods. Soon I learned to differentiate a little; one was shy and hung back - in fact, she was a little small and was sometimes ostracized by the others in their play. She had big round eyes. I called her Kwee because she'd open her mouth and after a while would emit a tiny supersonic peep, a high-frequency pulse.

Another was bold, climbed my leg, and ranged further away. I called him Foo Fighter because he hung off his mother's wingtip when she traveled, like the blue balls of light that followed fighter planes in World War Two. 

He was the first to come into my room. I put out tasty food. La Grita was so happy to see that, and so grateful, that she killed me a hummingbird. I kept throwing it out and she kept bringing it back. She had plans.

Pretty soon they were all hanging out in my room. I found a source of actual cat food, Whiskas, and foraged sand from the neighborhood at night for a catbox. Later located litter in Urubamba, the Sacred Valley's commercial center. Now I was The Giant Food Thing We Can Sleep On.

But they weren't my cats. I figured I could keep maybe one but the rest would have to go. Alicia, the landlady, said her mom wanted a couple. I felt badly about tricking them into the gunny sack to be taken away, but they were going to a good home with food and love, and I was going on the road for a month or so. Kwee and Lefty went. Ciao, little ones.

When I got back, so were Kwee and Lefty, emaciated and dripping shit all over their hindquarters, about half the size of the two who stayed. Gramma's place hadn't worked out for them. The story was that gramma had two big old cats who wouldn't let the kittens get to the food. Kwee was in the worst condition, clearly dying. 

I found a vet in Urubamba, a good one, Fabrizio, who gave her a shot for parasites and pills for stomach inflammation. He had wet food to wash it down and fatten her up.

One day nonetheless the skinny little one lay down on the concrete floor far from any comfort; I brought her to bed next to my head but in a few minutes she was dead. She made a little two-note cry and never moved no more. I slept beside her corpse until around 4 am. In the morning I took her down to the river, dug her a grave and piled it high with rocks so no one would bother her.  

So I took the living one back to Fabrizio, who tested her and learned that she was anemic. She's taking pills for that. Later, watching her behavior - the minuscule non-aspirated emissions, the big eyes, I began to understand that Kwee survived; it was her sister who died. She who had not been treated. Kwee lives. Now I call her Roundeyes. Sister Skinny is buried in the rocks. 

Took La Grita to the vet to get sterilized, but too late; she was already pregnant. Now she looks like a piñata and is about to detonate. I don't know anything about anything, but I built her a cloth-lined box if she wants to have them here. Fuck it. They're my cats now.

Enciente in the Garden

I'm their Giant Food Thing We Can Sleep On, now