fur against wood grain
the breath of the forest stills—
one watcher goes home
Our cat died today.
A blue-black shape, more shadow than feline. A kind of animal you don’t choose, not really. It shows up. It eats your dog’s food, hisses at your other cats, and settles on your porch like it owns the place. My mother called it a gipsy, though the word doesn’t sit well these days. Even the vet once mentioned, gently, that the name had aged poorly. But that’s the countryside—names linger long after their meanings crack.
The cat never minded. Never answered to it either.
It simply stayed.
Fourteen years. It outlived every other animal that roamed our land.
It grew up alongside our dog and seemed to think itself kin. It defended the house like a soldier, fought anything that sniffed too close—other cats, martens, whatever creature dared to blink the wrong way. A wild thing, yes, but also oddly noble. As if it had signed a secret pact with the land to remain.
Around year ten, the vet diagnosed it with feline immunodeficiency. We waited for the decline, but it never came. Not really. It stayed fierce. Watchful. Once, when all its teeth had to be pulled from some inflamed cruelty inside its mouth, we thought that would be the end.
But my mother, careful and absurdly tender, cut up its meat every morning. Placed it on the same stone slab. Called it softly, like she always had. And the cat—grateful, defiant—ate.
It escaped the vet twice.
I mean that literally. Slipped out of their grasp, disappeared through a window, and found its way home across meadows and forest. Both times. After we had warned them. After they’d smiled politely and nodded. Yet somehow 2 days later, even despite heavy rain and a thunderstorm it found its way home.
It came back – of course it did. With a scratch on its face. Leaves in its fur. Tail high like a banner.
In the last year it got thinner. Not suddenly. Like snowfall that doesn’t melt. It simply faded by degrees.
There was a shift. It no longer wanted to pee outside. Something had scared it, maybe a fox, maybe just the dark. So it stayed inside at night, pacing, yowling at doors not for freedom, but to keep the world in check. Like a sentry who doesn’t know how to retire.
I visited home two weeks ago. The cat met me on the steps like always. Rubbed against my shin. Stared with the same amber gaze. A little slower, but still genki. It always knew I was family, even after long absences.
And though I didn’t say it aloud, I think I said goodbye.
We always kind of know, don’t we?
My mother said it collapsed in the night. They warmed it. Spoke to it. And in the morning brought it to the vet for an X-ray.
No kidneys left. Gone. Whether by infection or time.
And with that, the last protector of our house was gone.
There’s something about animals like that—they’re not just pets. They mark eras. They are anchors. Coordinates for time.
I think what struck me most was my mother’s quiet calculation. When asked if they’d get another animal, she said no.
She said, “If it lives to fifteen, I might be too old to care for it.”
And that hit like something sharp and invisible. Like hearing a drawer close somewhere deep in the house.
People talk a lot about grief. But they forget that the first sensation is often not sadness.
It’s space.
The absence of paw-steps. The silence where a yowl used to be. The unopened packet of food. The fact that nothing needs protection now—but something still watches.
When the trees shake at night, when the gate creaks, I still imagine it’s there. Watching. One last patrol.
It lived a good life. It was loved. And it knew.
In the end, that’s all any of us can ask for.
life 
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