A bully is getting bullied

I am remembering that for a time while I lived at Lupin, a lame cat would come around. This cat was absolutely no threat to my cat, Admiral Janeway. But my cat was relentlessly vicious nonetheless, running this cat off. Then it was my cat who was the young and brave one.

I reproached her for that but as pathetic as her treatment of that lame cat was, it was also a genuinely brave thing that Admiral Janeway did in coming to live with me, breaking into a house—her house actually—with a strange man inside, and leaping seven feet to a hard floor. She was a kitten then, and I still remember her hopping on to my bed and traversing the length of my body as I lay on my side, purring loudly.[1]

It has been a hard time between Admiral Janeway and myself lately. As much as I have loved her, she has withdrawn from me. She does not want to be petted, she no longer nestles in the crook of my knee, she ignores me and only sometimes tolerates my entreaties. I close my bedroom door at night, so at two or three in the morning she wants in. And now, at seven or eight, she wants out. She has a cat door that leads to the front yard, but she wants access to the rest of the house.

I work hard at my studies. I am tired. I need my sleep. This gets annoying. But she was relentless.

So finally, yesterday morning, I threw Admiral Janeway out the front window. The fall is not great; this is a one story house. But the ingratitude and the disdain she now holds for me is more than I can bear.

My mother let her back in the front door and reports that she was apparently scared. My mother also tells me that Admiral Janeway is terrified of a neighbor cat, a cat who arrived in the neighborhood while still a kitten and with whom she has had months to establish some sort of a live-and-let-live relationship. Now that cat is faster and stronger than she is and apparently vicious toward her.

I am thinking of that lame cat at Lupin. The bully is getting bullied.

Admiral Janeway still has a home. Her food bowl and water fountain are now in the guest room, with a litter box. But as things stand, she will no longer be spending nights with me. And I have one less reason to live in a life that already offers me precious few reasons to live.

  1. [1]For more on this story, see this posting.

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