As a new-age pagan I've got this adoring/caring thing for animals, and certain creatures figure big in my Unconscious, as virtual spirit guides for my wanderings both in the astral and physical realities. I have animals tattooed all over my body, and particularly have an affinity with cats and have experienced many times that wildcats come to me in my dreams, befriend me and lead me into the Dark Continent of the Unconscious, once I even morphed into a black panther, as if Mowgli turned into Bhageera in "Jungle Book".
So with what joy it was 2 years ago when my next door neighbour was given the most gorgeous little black kitten, and asked me if I wanted to share the upkeep of him. He had already been tagged as Teddy and was so smart, mischievous and loving, running, leaping, climbing with an intense natural joy and, when particularly happy and wanting attention, he did a funny little sideways walk that was very endearing. When I first spotted him peeping from Cursula the Ogre's doorway, it was mutual love at first sight, he rushed out and did a proud victory-like march, little chest puffed up, as if to say, "Look at what a top cat I am! You can't go wrong with me".
My next door neighbour, Cursula, looks very much like the female version of Shrek without Cameran Diaz's sweet voice, and is a slovenly harpy, a poly-drug-abuser and a waif of the State, always with her hand out. Teddy soon figured out she was never getting out of bed till 2 in the afternoon and thus he starved all day, but he found a way of getting into my place thru the balcony where I would have 'gourmet singles' waiting for him, and so he transferred his allegiance over to me, and often slept on or under my bed, nipping at me to get up and feed him.
I loved to have him lie across my belly when both of us were mellowed out, it was so nice to connect to nature in the middle of a big, bad city. Other cats from Cat-town, the electricity station across the road from Northcott Ghettoe, would come for a visit, they'd smelt Teddy's presence or heard of a "top cat" in the area and they just had to come for a look-see or even to make obeisance. But I'm a traveler, a dharma bum more often on the road than not, and so I left town for months on end, and Teddy had to go back to the Ogre when I disappeared. When I'd arrive home from my world-wide perambulations, Teddy would snub me for awhile, accuse me of abandoning him, of not caring and would only occasionally visit to get an extra meal, for he'd found others in the building willing to feed his huge, black magnificent self, they were more dependable than me or Cursula.
One mad old lady upstairs must have been feeding him humming-bird's tongues or something because he stuck fast to her and we wouldn't see him for weeks. She often did jigs on our verandah, lifting her ragged skirts and thumbing her nose at us as if to skitee, "I got one over on you layabouts." We accused the crazy old blonde witch of catnapping Teddy, Cursula even had a cat-fight with the gay guys down the other end of our basement level who we suspected of giving Teddy away to the upstairs harridan, they said we neglected him, much scratching and caterwauling ensued between them, I was quite amused to hear the uproar, Cursula trying to claw open the face of the gay undertaker, Dravid.
But Teddy never came back to us for long, just the rare few minutes to say hello and let us know he hadn't entirely forgotten his first foster parents. He'd grown to be huge as a panther and apparently he went about beating up all the other Northcott cats, trying to steal their food and be the alpha male. The gay gorgons demanded we get Teddy desexed, that would solve the bully problem, but we are flaky hippie types who believed things should be left in their natural state, Teddy's personality would warp if we cut his balls off and we loved him as he was, so we'd let him run riot and that's why they gave him away to the bitch who neutered and chipped him.
Sadly I heard from the gay couple that Teddy died last week. Blondey had spent a fortune on him at the Vets but he was riddled with some disease he'd picked up when a young kitten. The gay gorgons said it was from eating rats in Cursula's messy hole of a flat because he was always starving. She never cleaned up, all garbage went straight to the floor, and she brought in heaps more from the dumpsters, in her drug-craziness believing the trash to be treasure and piling it up so you couldn't get in her joint, and thus the hovel was full of scurrying, pesticide-soaked rats. The State even took her kids off her for being a brainless, dirty cow and now the whole building is accusing her of killing gorgeous Teddy, but I think some ugly neighbour fed him poisoned meat because he'd scratched up their wimpy felines one time too many, they were always bitterly complaining about him.
Like vacuous zombies the hypocrits had a funereal for him in the communal backyard and we weren't told about it. It makes me so sad as he was and is big in my mind and heart, so RIP Teddy, have fun in the happy hunting ground of the Cat Underworld, I'll be roaming with you in my dreams as my spirit guide, companion in the jungle of the World Unconscious. And I'll be telling more about Cursula the Green Ogre and the evil gay twins down the other end in my future tales of existential horror here in Northcott Ghetto at the end of history because that's how life seems for me, the Punk Poofy Cat, "the END of the world is nigh!".
