Casanova (2 page)

The old woman scooped him up from her lap, walked over, and placed him in Gwen’s. Then Mariya whispered in her ear.

“Look into his eyes and you will see that my Casanova is a lover, not a fighter.”

He was purring in Gwen’s arms, but as his mother returned to her seat without him the low rumble became less, and less, and less.

“We’ll take him,” Larry blurted as the purring stopped completely.

Gwen and Larry Talbot purchased Casanova and boarded a train for the return trip to Woodstock. Larry would remember how all the cats in the shop watched in silence as they took Casanova from them. Trees of cats with staring eyes. He would also recollect the deep kiss he shared with his wife on that train. It would be the last sincere kiss of both their short lives.

Casanova arrived at his new cabin home in the woods and for the first three days he did nothing but sleep. He would stir and mew whenever Gwen or Larry moved him. It was really the only way the couple knew their child was still alive. Behaving like parents of a new age, they sought advice on social media. Their friends assured them that the kitty was just adjusting to his new surroundings and that he would be himself in no time.

Casanova was dreaming.

In the beginning he was resting comfortably in a beautiful wooden box with a plush purple interior. A few of his favorite treats were in there with him. There was also a pinch or two of catnip. Life was good in the purple lined box. His tummy was full. His mind was at ease. In the purple box there was not a care in the world.

In the next moment Casanova was a cat in the dark in a cardboard box resting on a stranger’s lap. This box was cold, empty, and unlined. Casanova couldn’t think of food. His mind was ill at ease. His little heart was racing. He was being taken far from his mother. He could feel it. Her sweet smells, so familiar to him, were getting further and further away. He could hear her heartbeat fading from him.

“Casanova,” a woman called to him from outside the box. “Casanova, come here and look.”

There were three small holes cut out of each side of the box. The voice was calling to him from somewhere out there but the kitten was too afraid to look.

“Cass,” the woman said softly, “never fear.”

Only Mother called him Cass. The kitten rushed forward and put his eye to one of the holes. He blinked to focus but all he saw was himself. He was laying on a cloth. He was covered in blood. Several other kittens were lying next to him. They were lifeless. A man was examining another kitten.

“This one’s gone too,” he said.

Casanova watched as his just born self began to mew.

“He’s calling for his mother,” the man sadly noted.

Something moved and blocked the kittens view.

Casanova ran to another hole and peered through. There was his birth mother. She was beautiful. Her markings were just like his. Looking at her he could see what he was going to become. That made him happy. The sadness he felt was because she was not breathing.

“I’m his mother now,” a woman’s voice said.

He knew that voice but his view was blocked again. He went to another hole. There was nothing there. He desperately ran to another. There was Mother in her shop. She was cradling him in her arms as they both rested in her rocking chair. Mother was reading to him as she often did. He blinked and she was talking to him as she puttered about. Casanova loved the sound of her voice. He blinked again and there was Mother feeding him medicine when he was sick. Mother’s care is the best care.

One more blink and she was gone.

Casanova felt the loss deeply. He didn’t want to look anymore. He didn’t want to see any more. But curiosity being in his being, he looked through one more hole and there he found a black night sky and a moon. It was big, and round, and bright. Almost too bright for his eyes to view.

“This moon is yours,” a woman spoke.

Although he had never heard it, this voice he knew.

“This moon is yours,” his birth mother repeated.

Suddenly the moonlight became blindingly brighter.

Casanova had no choice but to turn away from the light. The moon outside became brighter still and light began to pour into the box. The kitten backed himself into a corner as the light pushed through all the holes. Each shaft of light found him there.

“All these moons are yours.”

Small circles of round white lights began dancing over his body.

“Every moon has a name. Every moon has a mood. Let them guide you.”

Little full moons now covered him head to tail.

“Let them drive your desires. Let them show you who you truly are.”

Those were the last words his dream mother spoke. The soft echo of her parting words took all the light with them as Casanova fell deeper into a dreamless sleep.

When the rare October Full Blue Moon rose high in the sky, Casanova woke to his strange new world. In this family arraignment, much like Gwen and Larry’s relationship, there was not much love on display, and everyone had a very specific role to play. Dutiful wife. Faithful husband. Trouble free pet.

Casanova would have none of that.

At first Casanova wouldn’t eat. He couldn’t eat. The food did not taste like the food Mother gave him. He hated it. He hated everything about it. The smell. The texture. The taste. Casanova even hated the bowl they put it in. Gwen found it in a yard sale. The bowl had dog faces painted on it. Larry thought that was funny.

“He has to get used to the food.”

“He obviously hates this stuff.”

“Are we supposed to cater to him?”

“What if he starves?”

Casanova thought their concern was interesting, so he decided to continue his protest by making their worst fear real.

He would starve himself.

Over the next few weeks he watched as they brought him can after can of wet food, and bags and bags of crunchy, dry food. But Casanova would not eat. Or so Gwen and Larry thought. The clever cat was eating small bugs he would find around the house and drinking only what he needed from the water they left him.

It was on the night of a Full Cold Moon in December when Casanova spied a fat mouse. The bitter cold of winter makes the hungry and the desperate seek food where they otherwise would not. The cold makes a starved animal take risks. There was a small opening in the wall near the wood burning stove. This mouse had found it and made his way in seeking sustenance.

A cat’s bite is perfectly designed to snap a rodent’s spine. Their teeth are set in a specific pattern to match the vertebrae. Their upper and lower jaws can snap shut with just the right amount of pressure to crack bone. Without any warning the cat pounced and killed the mouse. The victim only let out the tiniest of squeaks before it fell lifeless.

Casanova wanted to show his prize to Gwen and Larry so much, but they didn’t deserve to receive this gift. This one was all his. Casanova ate the mouse all up, leaving nothing but the bones. He hid those in a small space he had created by tearing the fabric on the underside of the couch. The next night came and so did another mouse. Casanova repeated the process all over again.

On the third night, the cunning cat moved his bowl of food closer towards the opening in the wall. Casanova waited and watched in silence after everyone had gone to bed. Only the occasional hiss of burning moisture in the wood broke the silence. He watched as a mouse entered. He waited patiently in the dark as the intruder sniffed and explored his surroundings. Eventually the mouse found what the cat had left for him and begin to eat the crunchy kibble in the dog bowl.

Casanova maneuvered quickly and quietly as he watched his little visitor gorge itself on the easy food. The mouse felt a brush of breath on his back and turned to find Casanova’s fully opened jaws. The fate of the mouse was the same fate as the mice before him and many after. A quick kill, followed by a carnivorous devouring, and completed with a hasty burial of bones in the recesses of the couch.

The next morning Larry stepped into the food bowl as he passed the stove. After much cursing and discussion, it was decided that this was a positive development.

“At least he’s eating.”

“Finally.”

“He must be happier with it there.”

“Then I say we leave it there.”

Casanova watched the exchange and though he couldn’t understand all the words, he sensed that these simple creatures weren’t very intelligent and could be easily manipulated.

When the Full Flower Moon came in May, Casanova longed to be outside. The colors he saw through the windows were so inviting and the smells were intoxicating. He needed to be outside. He needed to run through all the new growth. But the window could only be open so much. The screen always had to be in place. Escape from this prison was not advised though he attempted several times.

He tried pushing his head through the blockade.  He tried biting at the mesh. The first ended in a wave of splashed water. The other ended in a spanking. Both resulted in isolation in the windowless basement. None of these things would deter him. He needed to be outside. If there was an unattended door he would try to zip through it. If a screen blew out a window he would try to leap through it. Casanova would not and could not be incarcerated.

All these constant rebellions and attempted escapes began to worry Gwen and Larry.

“What if he gets out?”

“He’s not going to run away.”

“What if he dies in the woods?”

“Then he dies in the woods.”

The arguing went on like that every time an escape attempt was made until a neighbor knocked on the door. At first he came with a noise complaint. After hearing the couple’s plight he made a suggestion. One week later the mailman brought Gwen and Larry a box. The couple was very excited and opened it quickly.

Casanova was immediately suspicious.

The package contained a black plastic collar with a bulky mechanism attached to it. The collar was obviously made for a larger animal because Larry had to bore a new hole into it to make it fit tightly on Casanova’s neck. The cat immediately hated it and began trying aggressively to remove it. Gwen had the other smaller device that came in the box in her hand and as Casanova squirmed she pushed the only button on it.

A shock wave shot through Casanova and stunned him. It felt as if someone had punched him hard in his chest and head at the same time. Casanova was still reeling from the first wave when another came and knocked the breath out of him. Larry had wanted to try the new toy, so he took the remote from Gwen and pushed the button himself.

Casanova could hear the couple laughing.

There would be no more jumping on counters. There would be no more scratching on anything other than his scratching post. More importantly for Gwen and Larry there would be no more attempted escapes beyond the set perimeter of the house itself. For Casanova there was only one undeniable reality. He was now a tortured prisoner in the place he was supposed to call home.

The evening the Full Thunder Moon came in July it brought a vicious electrical storm with it. High winds pelted the cabin with sheets of rain. Flashes of lighting lit the night bright. Rolling thunder shook the cabin with wave after wave of booming sound.

For the first time Casanova felt a moon coming before it arrived. In the days and nights before it came he had restless sleeps, his skin itched, and his fur crawled. He was uncomfortable in his own body. His head hurt and his spine ached. No matter how far he stretched his body and flexed his growing claws he could find no relief.

As the storm raged through the day Casanova tried to sleep but rest would not come. By sunset, he was beginning to drift off a bit but each sharp crack of thunder would shake him awake. When night fell he finally closed his eyes and slept, but it was not to last. He was jolted from his sleep when Larry grabbed Casanova, removed his shock collar, and put him back in the box that brought him to the cabin in the woods. 

“I don’t like this.”

“What are we supposed to do?”

“It’s cruel.”

“It’s necessary.”

Casanova and the box were soon out in the rain. The noises were so much louder and the rain was pushing its way inside the box. Casanova lost his footing when the box was tossed onto the backseat of Gwen and Larry’s car. Doors were slammed shut and the already running car lurched forward.

Casanova was confused and frightened. No one spoke to him. No one explained to him what was happening. Mother always spoke to him. She always warned him when things were going to change. Perhaps they were taking him back to her. Perhaps they were abandoning him. Perhaps they were taking him to a certain death.

Casanova tried to escape. He scratched at the box. He tried to tear at its thick cardboard walls. He couldn’t gain any traction because the box kept sliding across the seat as Larry navigated the wet road. Casanova arched up and pushed his back against the top of the box. Again he couldn’t gain enough of a footing to push the top open.

Casanova was desperate for help. He looked through the holes like in his dream. There was nothing to see and no one there to help. The exhausted and scared cat curled up into a ball in the corner of the box. He cried and mewed a little and then quietly awaited his fate.