the food chain
So yesterday, I let Brett, Number 4, most often known as Puddin’ Pie, outside for the first time in three days, and later, I look out the kitchen window and I see him carrying a huge bird in his tiny kitten mouth. And I thought it was a mockingbird, my mockingbird, the one that likes to tell me lots of stories, and I was oh, so not happy with Brett.
So I sent my husband a text that said, “Brett just killed the mockingbird,” and he called me and said, “No, that bird was out there when I mowed the lawn last night.” And Brett was not.
Pause. Okay….
And I was glad, oh so glad, that Brett didn’t kill it, and then, just a few minutes later, I heard the mockingbird, my mockingbird, singing his tune, and I was glad, oh so glad about that. But still, I had to wonder, who or what killed this bird, and why, knowing that we have six, yes, six! cats, did my husband just leave it out there?
Because then I couldn’t find Brett to get it away from him, and when he finally did come back, he was licking his chops, so I know, just know, that he had himself an I-have-no-idea-how-long-this-bird-has-been-dead snack.
But I can’t blame him, he’s a cat, for crying out loud. That’s his job in life. To kill birds and mice and those mice in clown’s costumes, the chipmunk. And then eat them.
And still it made me sad, because I love my birds and we have spent so much time and bird seed and bird baths and bird houses trying to attract them to our yard, and now we have these cats that I want to kill the mice and even the cute little chipmunks, but I definitely don’t want them killing birds.
But that is not the way nature works, not the way instinct works, and why did I think it would be, could be otherwise?
And then Brett, he comes inside and he climbs into my lap and he is just so stinkin’ cute and he is all cuddly, all purrs and kisses and sweet tiny meows in his funny little squeaky kitten voice. And I am in love with this kitten and his sweet cuddly kitten ways. But. I have seen, several times now, what he can do.
What he is capable of.
Food for thought, that.
