A Warm Blanket
The house is really quiet.
Even when Mama, Papa, and Pawel only breathe behind their hands, some noise can still be heard. Now it feels emptier underneath the house. I don’t trust the silence that comes with it.
I crawl out of my hiding spot. The wooden floor that was also the ceiling had been broken into. The sunlight from the entrance above gives a clearer picture of where we stayed for a couple of days. Or were they weeks?
The floor’s covered with long strands of yellow things that poked my paws and made my skin scratchy. There’s a small wooden ladder split in two by the crates Pawel would want to play on. Once he climbed the first one Mama would run to him and take him off.
I wonder if they went outside to go back home. To their book place where Pawel will give forgetful visitor’s their books. If I could drag my body up each crate I can go follow them back.
Pawel would want to see me do it. Every time I’d crawl out of my box by the tin cans to go towards him he’d squeal and clap his hands. I think that means he’s happy.
I know I was happy when he would walk down the stairs with my small plate of food. His legs wobbled with each step. One time he did fall over from his weak limbs. He cried and cried; I tried to comfort him by licking his pudgy face.
But since the men in gray jackets and leather boots went to the book place and the family left, they started to look like me: thinner and stinkier. When Pawel would pet me and give me my goodnight hug, his tummy no longer felt like a pillow. Mama’s skirt kept falling from her hips and Papa got really sick. There’s a towel with blood on it on top of a crate. Papa coughed into it every night, but I could barely hear him do it.
I finally get to the top crate with only a few splinters. It’s okay, I can’t feel them on my hind legs anyway. Once I’m in the actual house, there’s a lot of different things than when we came here that night. Mama likes everything clean and organized. I’m still surprised she accepted a stinky cat in her home.
Where I sit, the furniture is also broken into pieces and objects are scattered along the dirty floor. A large mirror by the entrance is shattered like the windows of the bigger room.
Pawel’s shoe is by the staircase. I should take it to him. He can still feel his legs and will cry if he steps on something sharp. Papa is irresponsible as always, exposing his child to harm. It’s his fault Pawel can’t use his legs.
After Oliver’s papa threw me out the window I couldn’t walk anymore. Papa must have done the same to poor Pawel. Anything that came from Papa’s hand I never accepted.
There’s no one inside the house either. The other nice woman and her husband would usually be in the kitchen. Did they go with them to the book place? Why was I left behind? Did Pawel forget about me? What if Papa told him that I could no longer live next to the book place? I don’t understand, I never meant to bother them, and tried to keep my distance. Mama was the one that began feeding me.
When she got close to my box with a piece of bread, I even swatted her hand away. The bread was stale and smelled of her sweat, she might’ve tried to poison me. But Mama wouldn’t give up giving me scraps of their dinner.
Every night, she’d place a small plate next to my box. Something different like potatoes with chicken one day and beef stew the other. The smell was so tempting that it attracted the other garbage cats to take it before I could sniff it.
Those dirty cats were already stealing the mice in the alley. Mama specifically gave me the food. So one night, when she gave me a creamy potato soup, I waited until she went back inside the house. Once I heard the doorbell, I reached my paw out and pulled the plate towards me.
Oh how delicious it was! It warmed me all around and I couldn’t stop eating it! Once my face was full of white cream, I looked up to see Mama at the door, laughing.
But that joy only lasted a moment. The cream, the meat, and the flavor slowly disappeared from my food. It was filled with warm water, potatoes, and carrots until the moment we came here. I thought it was because Pawel started to carry the food to me, and with his legs, Mama didn’t want him to drop hot food on him. Then when we came here, Mama, Papa, and Pawel ate the same thing, while sharing it with me.
It looks like potatoes and rice were the only thing the nice woman and her husband could give us. By the stove, large sacks of potatoes toppled over, with rice spilled and covering most of the kitchen floor. The kitchen looks the same as the entrance, everything broken. The door that heads to the garden is smashed right in the middle. I push the door with my head and slide down the steps, getting covered with more dirt.
I never got the chance to see back here. It’s a rose garden with some wilting tomato plants. Some birds made a nest on a fountain in the farthest corner. The air is fresh with a smell that’s the same as when Mama burns something. This smell is stronger though; I can feel it in the back of my throat.
Suddenly, someone walks past the garden. The wooden wall protecting the garden covers their body and only shows the top of their head. There’s a man with a gray hat, just like the ones that came by the book place.
The furs on my body stand up and my tail erects. I don’t like it. I don’t like those men at all.
The day they came, Pawel brought me my soup. I waited for him closer so he wouldn’t struggle. His legs wobbled and he warily walked with the plate. He stuck out his tongue as he stared at the soup, then at me.
His legs gave out and he fell on his knees. I thought he would cry but instead blubbered, “Wally”. He patted the floor for me to come, and so I began to eat the bland food again.
Soon after, I was interrupted by Papa swinging the door open and yelling at Mama. Mama saw Papa’s distraught face and quickly picked up Pawel before running inside. The people that walked around the neighborhood suddenly disappeared.
Panic crept in and I crawled to my box as fast as I could. From the corner of the book place, where there was a hospital, a big group of men with gray jackets and black boots marched through.
They yelled words I never heard before, but I know they weren’t good because their voices didn’t sound sweet like Pawel’s or Mama’s. One of them yelled towards the buildings around, pointing a strange object at them. Then he laughed, and when he did, the other men threw glass bottles at windows. People screamed with each shatter, making the gray men laugh even louder. The first man yelled some more words before erecting his right arm.
The men separated and went into the buildings. People jumped out the windows and gray men carried others out to put them in a moving box. My heart sped up as I thought of Pawel and Mama. I needed to protect them because Papa wasn’t incapable. I got out of my box and made my way towards the steps. Before jumping on the first one, Pawel cried for me in a quiet voice.
Papa held a wooden door open, one that wasn’t there before, and pulled Mama’s thin arms while she held a squirming Pawel. He kept yelling, “Wally! Wally!”. My instinct told me to go with him and I did. He hugged me tightly, not caring if my fur was dirty and unkept. I hid in his arms, watching as the neighborhood flew past me and narrow alleys came into sight.
That’s when we came here.
I need to go find them to make sure the gray men didn’t scare them away again. I go back inside to look around once more. Nothing again, the same silence as before.
As I walk to the entrance, I see Pawel’s other shoe was left behind. That stupid Papa, Pawel will hurt his feet when he drags them. With my head, I push it around because I already have his other shoe in my mouth.
The shoe falls down the steps, along with the one I let go to make it easier to take to Pawel. My foot loses balance and I topple down, landing on one of the shoes.
Out here is as quiet as it is inside. No one walks the streets, the footsteps of the gray man I saw are far away. A leaf blows with the wind, skating on the floor with the pebbles until it stops at a foot: Papa’s foot.
He lies on the ground, along with Mama, and Pawel between them. What are they doing? They can’t sleep out here, it’s not safe, there’s a gray man around.
Mama holds Pawel’s tiny hand. Papa lays on his stomach and covers Pawel’s belly with his hand. Papa dropped his brown hat on the floor. It has blood on it, he must have coughed in it because his coughing towel is inside. I push his head to wake him up but it doesn’t work. His eyes are still shut.
I crawl over to Pawel. His cheeks are no longer rosy and are sunken in. Come on, Pawel, wake up. It’s too cold to be out here. Your legs are too weak, what if someone steps on you? Papa’s hand is too heavy to move from his belly, the warmth must be comforting him to sleep in such a cold place.
I touch Pawel’s little face, and he’s no longer warm. His forehead is covered in blood, he got sick already! Stupid Papa, you need to take care of him better. Mama’s sick too, she has blood on her head and her big chest.
It’s snowing now. Pawel can’t be out in the snow. Mama once said that it hurts his little legs. That happens to me too.
Since Pawel is a child, he needs protection first. Someone will come and wake them up for me, so we can go back home. I’ll let him take me inside now, so I can sleep in his bed.
But for now, Pawel’s cold. I need to cover him, just like he covered me with a blanket when it rained. I’m dirty but he won’t mind, he never did. I don’t have a blanket, but with my fur I’ll stay here until he can be warm again.
