adrenaline

So, before I got Methodius, I had noticed that there was a tortoiseshell-looking cat that roamed our yard from time to time, slinking along the walls and napping under my or my landlord's cars. I was a therefore a bit leery about letting M frolic unsupervised in the yard for the first few weeks, though he eventually figured out how to get out through a window I generally leave open at night for a breeze. That said, I would still shut the window and essentially lock him in the house while I was gone, partly because I didn't trust him not to get into trouble, and partly because he didn't know how to get back in through the window. I'd been told by the friend who gave him to me that M doesn't always flee when it's in his interest to do so, and this tortoiseshell-looking cat didn't exactly look like the forgiving type.

M's a smart kitty, and he figured out pretty quickly how to get back through the window via an upturned bucket I had placed beneath it. He tends to stay in at night, I think, since he generally wakes me up. But what do I know? He has generally been coming and going as he pleases these days, though I don't think he has left the compound (for which am grateful). And though I've been keeping my ears peeled when he's out, he hasn't really gotten into trouble...

... until tonight.

M was outside, prowling around, and I heard a noise. It might have been the noise of two cats making angry noises at each other, but I couldn't tell. I went outside, listened, and called for M. Nothing. He doens't always come immediately, and I couldn't know whether he hadn't just come in through the window. I heard more noises, which turned out to be someone showering in the next house. Still no M.

Then I saw a cat that looked bigger than M slinking along the far wall. That started to worry me. Had M been badly hurt by that cat? Was he bleeding somewhere? I couldn't hear any hurt kitty noises, either, but did that mean he had been hurt so badly that he couldn't even cry?

As I was standing there, peering into the darkness and wondering just how bad the situation had got, M staggered into doorway, and shook himself, spattering some liquid on my foot. This put me through the roof: I couldn't see him, and I was afraid it was blood. I brought him inside, and after a thorough check (which he didn't really appreciate), I realized that it was only water. He was pretty soggy for a cat, particularly on his belly, but he wasn't wet through. He seemed annoyed rather than injured, and between my attentions with a tea-towel and his assiduous bathing, the two of us managed to sort him out. The little bundle of fur is asleep on my lap as I type this.

My guess is that he encountered the other cat, and somehow wound up in the mostly empty swimming pool that lies alongside my little cottage. The pool has collected some rainwater lately, and that's the only place I can think that he could have gotten himself so wet. And while I'm greatly relieved that he's no worse for wear, I'm glad at least that I'm a single woman in the field with a kitten rather than a single woman in the field with a child. Yikes.