Land of My Fathers Poetry Club

The Cat

Now this is somewhat of a strange little story a few years after Andy was born we moved into a ground floor flat or what some of you would call a ground floor apartment, it was a lovely warm summer night so we decided to leave the bedroom window open. After watching a little bit of TV in bed we went off to sleep I awoke in the middle of the night with something tickling my nose, I was turned toward Ness in bed and assumed it was her hair so I went to move it over a bit. To my surprise I thought Ness your hair seems very soft and silky tonight it feels wonderful.

Then as I stroked it, it started to purr it gave me quite a surprise I can tell you it was quite dark in the bedroom with only the moonlight coming in through the window, then it suddenly hit me.

Grabbing hold of the hair with both hands I held it up towards the window love a duck, I was right it was a bloody cat. I nudged Ness and said look what I got she jumped out of bed and put on the light and there I was, holding up a large ginger tom cat.

It was a lovely looking cat but it gave us quite a turn it must have come in through the window and seeing us asleep got in between us and went off to sleep I put the cat back out the window and closed it then we went back off to sleep.

The next morning I went out into the garden and the cat was still there he didn't seem to belong to anyone so we took him in and looked after him Andy liked him quite a bit he was a very friendly Moggie, but I had never been a cat person and I had quite a few goldfish so we had to be careful We had, had him now for over a week and he seemed a wonderful pet but I had been having a bit of trouble with one of my very large goldfish he was a lovely fish, one that I'd had, for quite a few years in fact but he had got a bit of fin rot and needed to be put in a small tank all on his own

I did this and put the tank on the window ledge it was a Thursday our shopping day so off we went to town we where gone about two hours. As I opened the door to the flat and walked in I noticed some small fish fins on the carpet leading into our bedroom. The sight that greeted me filled me with horror. There was the cat laying out on our bed eating my best goldfish, but not for long. He took one look at my face and made a dive out the door I picked up a shoe and threw it at him. Missing him by inches off he went up the garden path and over the fence and till this day that's the last I saw of him ... guess what, no more cats in my house.

by Dennis T Baker


Last Modified on: 05-12-2018