Thursday, June 2, 2011

This Story Does Not Have a Happy Ending


It was right before Christmas 2001. I was on my way to the freeway from work when I saw the kitten run out into the street. It was hit by a car. At first I didn’t realize what it was. I thought something had blown out in to the street. It wasn’t until I closer that I realized it was lumpy! It didn’t look too bad, so I pulled over to the side of the road.

It took me a minute before I could run out into the center of the street. It was rush hour before a holiday on a busy street, after all. It was moving a little. Unfortunately, as I was parking and trying to get out into the street, poor little kitty had been run over a couple of times. But I didn’t care. I just wanted to get it out of the road.

I picked it up and ran back to where my car was. I could still feel it breathing, so I felt there had to be hope. For some reason, I still thought that after looking the little guy over. He was tiny, no bigger than the length of my forearm, and black and white. I could see his labored breathing in my hand. He was covered in blood, but I didn’t want to move him around too much to find out where it was from. I grabbed a jacket out of my car and put it down on the trunk, and put the little guy on it.

I looked him over a little and realized that he may be in worse shape than I thought. He was pretty flat in areas, and very floppy. But amazingly, that wasn’t what caught my eye the most. One of his eyes was ok looking, and kept staring at me, no matter where I moved. But the other eye, well, let’s just say it wasn’t IN his head. It wasn’t gone, it was still attached, but no longer in the socket. That kind of creeped me out. But I soldiered on.

Now that I picked this poor injured cat out of the middle of the road, what in the world was I going to do with it? I had my cell phone, but because I didn’t know what to do, I did what anyone else would do. I called work. They have computers there, right? Plus, at the time, I worked for an animal magazine. Someone there should know what I should do! I got one of the sales people from Dog Fancy, Gene. He’s a very nice man with a DJ voice. I was hysterically crying at this point, because I not only felt bad for the kitty, but I was so frustrated with myself for not knowing the area that I had worked in for the last two years. He couldn’t think of much except to call the Humane Society or the city animal control, and he tried his best to calm me down. He didn’t have either number, and had to go because there were other calls coming in.

I ended up calling Information to get connected to animal control. I got connected, and surprisingly, someone was there. It was after five on a holiday weekend, after all. I can only imagine how crazy I looked, flailing my arms while on my cell phone, parked in the driveway of the parking lot and yelling into the phone like a loon while covered in blood from this poor kitty! I finally nailed down when they would be able to come out. But I wasn’t sure I could wait for them to show up, so I told the person on the phone that I would lay the kitty down in the grass next to the driveway. They agreed that would be fine.

I decided I had to wait. I couldn’t leave the poor little kitty alone. It was getting chilly and it was the holidays, after all, I wasn’t heartless. I waited with kitty and held him while he took his last shuddering breaths. I hope he went in peace. That started me crying all over again. And then the animal control truck arrived, it only took a few minutes, but it seemed like an eternity. The lady got out of the truck and took out a giant shovel. I told her that the kitty had passed before she got there. She understood and had me place the kitty on the ground, she picked him up with the shovel and put him into the back of the truck. She told me to have a Merry Christmas, got into her truck and drove away.

I did not feel right, but there was nothing I could do except go home. So, off I drove, sobbing all the way.

Photo credit: Pick Your Clan

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