Somebody's cat

I found somebody's cat dead in the street a block down from my house last night. At first glance, lit by my headlights, it looked like it might have been the long-missing Smudge, but it was not.

I touched her. She was still warm, and rigor mortis had not begun. She had been dead only a few minutes. I picked her up and put her on the grass, off the pavement. I stroked her side a few times, which did nothing for her, but made me feel a little better.

My street is so quiet it's hard to imagine how you would hit an animal with a car unless you were trying to. But we've had a half-dozen or more cats killed since last spring in this two-block stretch. No dogs, and only a couple of squirrels, but a lot of cats. I suspect we've had someone move into the neighborhood who enjoys running them down.

(Years ago in Texas, I worked with a guy who ran over all kinds of animals, and had practiced until he could aim his company Tahoe with deadly accuracy. It was an expression, he said, of the dominion God had given him over the beasts in the field and the birds in the air. He was eventually fired, and last I heard was marketing himself as an evangelist.)

I remain somewhat closer to dogs and cats than to humans. If I were forced to choose - and I hope I never am - I would give up human contact before I would give up animals.