Cat Spat Back

The car was approaching
a stop sign
when I heard the “Whack!”
Had a rock just materialized
underneath my car?
Then, the gasps of shock
from my younger siblings:
Omigoshyouhitacat!
But cats don’t make sounds
like rocks when they hit
the underside of a car,
do they?
Must’ve been a hard skull…

I hadn’t even seen a cat
anywhere near the road.
After I came to a full stop,
I was able to look to my right
and witness the macabre
spectacle before my eyes.
A grayish orange cat
was attempting to leap
over a chain-link fence
that stood two feet
from the roadway.

The cat would’ve had
no problems doing so,
except for the fact
that my car (read: I)
had cracked its back.
The lower half of its body
flopped uselessly in the air
with each violent effort
to clear the fence.
The two hind limbs
reminded me of the legs
of an invalid in a wheelchair:
so much dead weight.
The only force
the cat could muster
was purely from its front legs
coupled with sheer will.

The sight produced
writhing maggots
in my stomach.
It was as if
the cat wanted to run
as far away from me as it could.
From my vantage point, though,
the cat obviously had no chance
of leaping over
the four-foot high fence.
Each time it flung
its body upward,
the back feet only came
a few inches off the ground.

The situation only became worse
as my younger sister
rolled down the rear window.
Suddenly I could hear
the rage that accompanied
the cat’s sickening acrobatic display.
Hissing crackled through the air,
aimed at me.

All I could think was,
“I didn’t even see you, cat!
It’s not my fault!”

I wanted to shout
those words to the cat
and relieve myself
of any guilt
or responsibility in the matter.

I wanted it to stop
trying to jump over
an impossible obstacle.

But that cat looked at me,
as if sensing my thoughts,
spat back
and leaped four feet three inches,
clearing the fence and landing
in a yard in which it undoubtedly died,
hours later.

I have no idea how long
it took for that cat
to succumb to the pain,
because I was already late
getting to church
and couldn’t waste any more time
with things I couldn’t control.
Maybe it survived.
After all, it cleared that fence…