Wiz was one-year-old when he was given away for the second time. He was a black and white kitten who barely remembered his cat mother but he already knew what he wanted from his first human mother, and that was more food, more care, and more playing.
His overworked female human, with four offspring of her own, barely had the time to provide for his wishes. Therefore Wiz would bite her, he decided, because he would demand his due of attention. And when human hands were clumsy and way too strong around his kitten body he would bite them too; because he was Wiz, the wise and the fierce kitten.
After one year they sent him away. He would never see her or her family anymore.
He would miss his first human mother. Even if she had been so inconsistent, he so often had to steal human food from the table because she would give him only dry food and often forget even that. Human food tasted so good, he liked it, even if sometimes it made him ill.
Being sent away hurts. What had he done to be so rejected? Female humans were bad, he determined.
On the separation day, a big human male and his smaller male offspring came. They put Wiz in a plastic box, and they took the box inside a
strange and noisy moving behemoth. ‘Humans and their monsters’, Wiz thought. The behemoth moved for a couple of hours and then stopped in a place that smelled different. They took his box, entered another closed place that was another human den, and left his box on the floor.
Despite his bravery, Wiz tried to conceal his fear. Then a female human opened his box. She smelled of friendship, but he thought: ‘I don’t want to get too attached again to another human female. What if she sends me away again, as the other one did?’ He should be distrustful of female humans, he decided. They made you love them and then sent you away. He would not love this one.
Wiz bit her hand. She looked at him, her brown eyes seeming to guess everything, and caressed his back and his head only a little, carefully, as if she knew she had to go slow. He tried to bite her again, but she seemed to guess that before so well too, as if she had met many fierce kittens like him before. After more failed attempts, he resigned himself to be petted.
His new female human gave him dry food too. It seems he would have to continue to steal human food after all. Only that she would seem to guess his intentions at most times like a witch. What a frustrating witch, really! Upset, Wiz jumped on shelves and pawed weird human see-through containers that seemed not to have any use at all, out of the shelf.
‘Take that witch! I am not a tame kitten!’
It was satisfying to see the containers falling to the floor, crashing. Some containers had liquid inside and made a splash on the floor, the many see-through pieces scattering everywhere.
‘The witch would get so upset! She would see how fierce he was and she would not try to pet him again.’
The witch only took him out of the shelf and enveloped him in her arms. Her warmth seeped towards him in waves of deep understanding.
‘Stop that witch!’ Wiz thought, ‘I don’t want this energy. I just don’t.’
Her energy was so overwhelming, it was like the warm sea on a summer day, when you have no worries and all you want is for that day never to end.
When you, as a child, close your eyes and see the luminous pink inner side of your eyelids.
When you seem to float in warmth and peace and you think this world is a wonderful place where someone you barely remember really loves you.
Wiz slept, and he never broke containers from the witch’s shelves again.
Sir Socks Le Chat 