Green the Orange Cat

I saw a cat, which I named Green. It had been staying on the edge of the roof across my room’s window for two days at least. I am not sure of its gender or where it came from. All I know is that it’s orange and no younger than three years. Why it was always there whenever I looked out the window was something I unfortunately found out later.

Green was not the one who pissed on my books that carelessly stayed idle on my desk until the fateful day on which they were liquidated. That cat was dirty white, and prefers to sleep beneath the sill. That dirty white cat was once claimed by Evil Mitch to be hers—and so I decree: A book for a book, an eye for an eye.

But digressions aside, Green is dead. I found out the stinky way when I went out the back of the house in search of a dead rat, which I originally thought was the source of the repugnant aroma (but my first guess was that the neighbors were just grilling tamban). My nose pointed upward and as I raised my head, the orange cat’s image flashed into mind. With a flat bamboo shaft and two large garbage bags, I went out through my brother’s window. Carefully pacing on thin plates that creaked upon every step, I slowly reached the spot where no dead cat should be. The summer sun made a grill of the roof and it helps a lot in spreading the smell. Dead cat barbecue: innards and all. Time check: past 11am, it is almost lunchtime, ladies and gentlemen.

Summer breeze blows faster decay. I cannot say the time of death; I leave that to the mortician. I have no idea how it died. Maybe the sun cooked its brain while it slept. By the time I found Green, it was already bloated and heavy as a corpse should be. The mandible has fallen off, the gut drips out through a hole on the midsection, and there’s a small puddle of blood slowly flowing underneath it, in which fat maggots wiggle with glee as they frolic with flies. Green must be dead for more than a day. I cannot pick him up because he’s too heavy and the spilling bowels will be too messy.

I spread a wide black garbage bag over Green. I wish I had coal. Later he will be placed in an earth-filled drum or in a trap wall, and there he will stay until he surrenders all his particles back to nature, and stop stinking.

But that has to wait ‘til tomorrow. For tonight, I will draw down my blinds, stuff my nostrils with mothballs, and hope I can rest in peace.





Nota Bene: Depende sa mangyayari, maaaring ang susunod na entry ay papamagatang "Four Kittens and a Funeral". Inside joke untuil further notice.