A Strayed Cat Saved My Life (dedicated to 2022)

I have known death

and I have known life

I have wept

and I have felt the ground lose its gravity.

But have you ever been terrified of life and death at the exact same time?

And it metamorphosed your entire existence and drained you of everything you’ve ever held onto.

Then I met this strayed cat —

my cat was stuck in drainage too little

for a life to breathe, desperate,

I talked to an aged old big cat nearby —

“Could you help? She is so scared, could you take her home?”

I was dizzy, sleep-deprived, skinned bruised,

the world was just ending, and I didn’t realise

it was just a beginning of life.

A big strayed cat, oranged striped, I will never forget,

sat on a wall, looking at me,

as if we shared the pain and the forbidden knowledge of this world.

“Have you brought her back? You could go help her?”

He looked into my eyes and sitting just there,

telling me with his omniscient posture and aged-old almightiness.

My cat leapt just behind him, running straight back home,

her hair wet dirt, mud-cleansed, eyes wide open.

The orange cat led her home. He looked me in the eyes

“Here. I brought your silly cat home.”

And walked away.

An act of a stranger’s kindness, a spontaneous moment, nature’s rendition,

gives you the strength to go on.

Just like that, when I thought it was the end of it all,

a strayed cat saved my life.