Here is another short story from the Wednesday Writer's Whatchamacallits FB writing group. We meet via Zoom every Wednesday morning at 11 p.m. central if anyone would like to join. Today's prompt was: You just rescued an animal from a will-kill shelter…on the way home, the animal surprises you by…
The following is the story I wrote (in 15 minutes) based on this prompt.
And yes....the image has been Photoshopped (badly, I might add).
Three-Paws
“Here’s your leash, Sir.”
I look at it with confusion, wondering how on earth I was going to put a leash on a cat. Sure, you can walk a dog, you can walk a horse, heck, you can even walk a cow, but who ever heard of walking a cat? Their ferocious little minds just don’t take well to captivity.
But I took the leash anyway, scooped The Cat up (yes, The Cat—capital T, capital C for the simple reason that I hadn’t named her, and probably wouldn’t as that would be my daughters job), and walked out of the shelter.
She was a cute little thing though, I do have to say that for the little critter. White fur as soft and billowy as snow, with dark grey socks on three paws—its funny, she almost looks as if she stepped in a mud puddle and suddenly leaped out, leaving only a single paw unstained. It was her eyes that were the most striking feature though. They were something I’d heard about but had never actually seen in any animal. Her left eye was emerald green—almost turquoise like the Jamaican waters where my wife and I spent our honeymoon. The other, as blue as the sky on a fall morning.
I sit her beside me on the passenger seat and she curl into a tiny ball. Glad that she hasn’t freaked out, I toss the leash into the back seat, start the car, and pull away, knowing in a few short minutes my daughter’s smile will make adopting our first pet worthwhile.
Then something happened that surprised me. The ball of fur uncurls and looks up at me. Our eyes meet and some type of understanding flows between us. I pull to the side of the road, mesmerized. She takes a step toward me, then another—and crossed the console that separates the two front seats. Lying down in my lap, she curls back into her little ball and begins to purr quietly. I thought I was buying my daughter a pet for her birthday, but it turns out, the kitten just got her very own human—me.
- CJT
August 1, 2018