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shiori_makiba) wrote2016-02-22 04:34 pm
Poem: Finding Home
by shiori_makiba
Word Count: 1073 in 148 lines
Inspired by the prompt made by ![[personal profile]](https://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
siliconshaman for Thank Muse Its Friday February 2016 session.
“Finding Home”
Arvid was a cat.
A Norwegian Forest Cat to be specific.
And cats were always specific
when it came to certain matters.
Like food, or names,
or the ownership of humans.
At the moment, Arvid was having a problem
with his humans.
Namely, he was here and
they were somewhere else.
Now Arvid wasn't certain where, exactly, here was.
It wasn't his territory.
His humans had gotten restless feet,
as they sometimes did.
He could understood that.
He got that way too.
Usually they went by themselves.
But this time they had taken him
with them on their journey.
This had pleased him.
He hated it when they left him alone
with strange humans.
Those humans didn't do anything right and
were never around long enough to be properly trained.
Such trips before had been short affairs
with his humans being unusual about the doors.
Namely they wouldn't open the ones to outside for him.
And no amount of yowling would convince them to do so.
It was puzzling behavior but
humans often did things that made no sense.
Arvid had learned to live with it.
Sometimes it was even amusing.
This was not one of those times.
This trip was different.
First, before they had left home,
the humans had put all of their stuff into boxes.
And had loaded those boxes into a bigger version of
the noisy, smelly thing they used to wander off.
Then he had been put into his carriage and
placed in the usual noisy smelly thing.
And they came to this place.
At first, his humans were doing their usual
not-letting-him-out at different places.
He grumbled but grudgingly accepted this.
Arvid entertained himself by giving everything
in the strange house a careful inspection.
The day before yesterday, the humans had finally
opened the outside door for him.
He went outside and began to make
the same careful inspection of outside.
He had to know who the cats around here were.
And other important details, like if there were dogs.
Some of the cats near home had dogs
in addition to humans.
They claimed that they weren't so bad
most of the time.
Arvid wasn't sure he believed this.
But even dogs with cats
sometimes chased cats.
And the ones without cats
were even worse about it.
He just as soon would rather not
have to deal with the drooling nitwits.
After his inspection and initial meetings
with this neighborhood's cats,
he had returned to the strange house
to find his humans gone.
Both of the smelly things were gone
so he assumed they had gone somewhere else.
They had done this before
and always returned within a few hours.
So he waited.
He waited until afternoon had faded into night.
No humans.
He left, did some more roaming
and more talking to the other cats.
Returned to the strange house and
found his humans still missing.
He left and returned a few times
but could still find no sign of his humans.
No smelly noisy thing in front of the house.
No smiling humans calling
his name when they spotted him.
No food and no water left out for him.
He could hunt but his humans had always fed him.
Even the stranger humans had remembered to feed him.
The only time he could remember not being fed
was sometimes when he was taken to
the place of poking-prodding humans
his humans called the vet.
Arvid was worried.
His humans never left him alone this long.
Not without themselves coming back
or sending one of the strange humans.
He had seen neither.
He was also afraid.
He had heard that sometimes humans left their cats.
Sometimes because they died.
But sometimes because they abandoned
their feline companions somewhere
and never came back.
Sometimes those cats got new humans.
Sometimes they didn't.
Arvid didn't want new humans.
He liked his humans.
He had been with them since he was a kitten
and they were properly trained.
This would not do.
He had to find them.
First place to check was home.
That was easier said than done.
He was further from home than he had been before
without his humans immediately in tow.
And they had taken him here in the noisy smelly thing.
It moved fast and as indicated by its name
was very smelly and very noisy.
And there were a lot of those things around.
And he had to be careful of them.
He had seen cats and other animals hit by those things.
Many of them did not get back up.
All of this made following any path it made very difficult.
But Arvid was a cat.
He did not give up easily.
He was making good progress.
Things were starting to smell familiar
and he had seen some familiar faces.
That's when he heard it.
“Arvid!”
He turned his face
in the direction of the shout
and there were his humans.
They didn't seem to have seen him
because they kept calling his name.
He meowed.
His humans paused, looking around.
“Arvid?”
He meowed again.
This time they saw him and came running.
“Arvid!”
In a twinkling, his human female had him up in her arms.
She held him up against her, petting his fur.
Her eyes were leaking and she was babbling.
Not that his human male was any better,
his arms around them both.
They took him back to the strange place.
Which turned out was their new home.
This was acceptable.
As long as he had his humans.
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
Arvid is a wise and intelligent cat. His humans... I guess they thought they'd lost him.
• and there was his humans.
-> were
Re: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
I'm glad you enjoyed it.
His humans got delayed returning to their new home and then couldn't find their cat anywhere. Then they did worry thing of what if he got hit by a car or something?
Error corrected.
Smart Arvid!
Re: Smart Arvid!
I extend full credit for achieving this feat to my furry little teachers. Squirt and Scamp have worked very hard to get me to understand even a little about cats.