Colony
by SpunSilk
Part Five: Storm
There are some things you learn best in calm,
and others you learn best in storm.
–– Willa Cather
Two days later, a storm moved in. Thunder rattled the old roof with its crashes. I glanced up from where I was typing by the light of the oil lamp to eye the ceiling skeptically, but it appeared to be solid and true. The echo of the thunder rolled and rolled into the distance, the fire crackled in the fireplace. The rain was relentless outside, but I was warm and dry. And not on edge because of the lightening, I swear.
In spite of this, I did jump when I glanced at the window and once more found a face staring at me out of the darkness; the wide eyes of that darned barn cat. By a flash of lightening, I saw he was soaked to the skin, and he gazed in at me and at my fire. He made not a sound, but his gaze looked longing.
Ah. Great! Now I was anthropomorphizing. Soon I'd be to the point of talking to myself!
In a rare moment of soft-heartedness, paired together with soft-headedness, I swung the window open. He looked at me warily, but the warm dry air did tempt him. I could tell. "W.C. Fields said it first; It's not a fit night out for man nor beast!" I told him. He looked at me quizzically, but did not enter. "All right. You don't trust me, and I don't trust you. But it seems we'll have to make the best of it." I turned my back on the window and moved to the fire, pretending not to take notice of him. A gust of wind and rain helped him in his decision-making; he hopped silently onto the floor. I was fishing my can of stew out of the embers at the edge of the fire with the fire irons. "Just the one night, eh?" I told him sternly. "Just until the storm stops. I don't abide free-loaders."
I grimaced. Now I was talking to a cat. My marbles were certifiably endangered. I sat on the floor and blew gingerly on my dinner.
He sat under the window with his tail wrapped closely around his feet, watching me, guardedly. I watched him in return. We sat this way for long minutes while I ate. I found his dignified gaze amusing. How rich. It looked as though he thought he was in charge of his little life, but with my larger perspective, I knew that he had no idea what the truth of the larger world was really like. "You aren't so different from me, are you?" I waxed philosophical. "You're just scratching along in life, doing what you know how to do in your own little world, and hoping not to end up as somebody-else-bigger's lunch. Huh." His unchanging eyes watched me, and were unmoved by what they saw. The rain outside poured, and offered a rumbling soundtrack to our interaction.
I ate until I was satisfied, the whole time his eyes never left me. I glanced into the sooty can in my hand. Oh, what the heck. I scrapped the little bit of stew left over onto the floor. "Mess call." I said simply. He ignored it until I stood and went over to the sink. At this point he dove at the food. I chuckled. I returned to the table, latched the window against the storm outside, and resumed my typing.
He was a lean grey and brown cat, large, with stripes on all four legs as well as his tail, that gave the impression that some raccoon blood was in him. I turned my attention to the police investigation on my typewriter. As I typed, the cat finished the food, and after licking the floorboard clean, moved right on to cleaning up himself. Senseless, I thought. With a life like that... like this... why bother?
I typed late into the night by the light of the oil lamp. The cat had curled up on the braided wool rug in front of the fire. The storm howled and whistled outside, but inside the cabin only the soft crackle of the fire and the hollow slap of letters on paper were to be heard. Then, after the fire settled down and in a moment's pause for me to compose the next paragraph in my head, a new sound vibrated through the cabin.
Someone was purring.