The Art of listening

So the Cat's meowing and her meows are loud, incessant.

She's moving here and there, walking in and out of rooms, up and down the stairs. She even sits outside by my plant pots and then wanders back in. All the time she is yowling.

She moves to her food plate piled high with shredded chicken and sniffs, sniffs, sniffs. Then she wanders away and meows some more. I am at my wits end. I don't know why she is doing this, thinking that maybe she is about to have a fit, or about to collapse or worse.

She keeps moving to her food plate and then wandering off in all sorts of directions, her meows loud and hollow. I am fretting to beyond reason. I think she is about to have a stroke. The world around me collapses in one big whirl.

And still she continues to howl.

An hour or so later and I realise why. At first I couldn't smell it, at first it smelled normal. But when I dared move the bits of chicken aside, the odour was more certain. The meat was rancid. Not out and out stinking. But there was that unmistakable whiff of something gone bad.

A fresh pack of cooked chicken later and the Cat is gorged and grooming herself. She is quieter. She is purring.

I think to myself, what an idiot! The Cat was trying to tell me something. Instead I chose to listen not to her but to my fears.

And worse, I gave into them.

Thank you, Cat. Lesson learned.

:-)