Oreon
Note to reader
9/27/20. I wrote this story last night, is raw material, will edit in a few days. Enjoy it raw.
9/27/20. First review......Enjoy!!
Oreon
I name this Cat "Oreon"
Can't tell the sex from this distance..
The name Oreon will fit both...Whether a She Cat or a He Cat.
A dreary weather morning it was
Decided to take a walk anyway
Needed to see and feel, so I went outside, mask in my pant's pocket in case I ran into a neighbor
I'm walking through my apartment complex, following the walker's road or the stone road or the brick road, the one that slithers through the property
There are three very full old trees, big, gorgeous, wise, proud, putting up with squirrels and their quarrels, birds and their tweets and bugs of all kinds.....along a building...I think is building #7...The one that runs parallel to the parking lot or vice versa
Walking off the road... Through the grass, as I turn towards the trees to admire their beauty and power and go between them ...Touch them
A little and fast moving bright spot caught my eye...
A Cat, a very young Cat....Light coffee with cream spots and white socks. A little strawberry in the nose
Oreon jumps around and runs and jumps.
Oreon is so young, I can't tell if the kitten is chasing real or imaginary bugs or a ghostly mouse. Oreon applies all the muscles and tail to this job, disappearing and appearing among the bushes
Then we noticed each other....An encounter...tete a tete...
What I saw in Oreon's eyes, besides being a very young kitten, was a need to live, a right to live, to be loved and cared for in a world not so much made for Cats.
I felt this and hesitated, the Cat ran straight to a car in the parking lot
I was dressed in baggy sports pants with a red stripe on each leg, black t-shirt and tennis, sunglasses...Maybe Oreon saw a scarry bug too big to catch...or perhaps sensed my hesitation
I kept walking towards the corner store.
A thought or vision evolved in me....I was holding Oreon, we were a team, two for the world, Oreon was safe now. I felt the love and the need to be loved...In both....The good times we could have together and how much a single event like meeting Oreon changes my life..I ran back but Oreon was gone.
I kept walking and a tear appeared and then another and another they kept flowing until I was engulfed in an emotional swirl....I was waken,...Realizing how alone I have been this year, how much all my emotions and experiences have been bottled up, how much I need to love and be loved back and how much discipline it takes these days to survive the city, how unreal my life seems some times these days.
I kept thinking about Oreon....Faced with the option...I would sit on the time machine and go back.....This time I won't hesitate with the Cat...
Where would I stop?
Yesterday with Oreon?...
What year? ..
All this swirls brought by a brief encounter with a very young Cat, a light coffee with lots of spots of cream a little strawberry and white socks, running about with the bliss and inocece that comes from being new to the world, free...just chasing a meal....
Guillermo Hinojosa- Canales
Note: The story of Oreon continues to develop.
Trying to win Oreon to my studio and a new life led me to meet his two sisters (Yaya and Mishu) and their protector Lolita (a white cat with blue eyes who turned out to be a male) and eventually Nemo and the other cats. The adventures we experience and survive overcoming the weather, hostility, chance happenings, sickness, death and acts of kindness are ongoing.
Oreon is now 2 years old and grown into a beautiful, free and dirty cat, all of them Oreon, Nemo, Mishu, Yaya, Chocho, Lolita, Camelio, Crazy Jack, Octavio, Lalo, Mr Norris have moved on. By now it is clear to me that some have passed away and are now in cat heaven. Others expanded their territory and the complex became an unfriendly environment for them. I continue to bring food and call out every day and see them every now and then, sometimes one, a couple or more or none. I'm mostly left with strong memories, beautiful and hard, of our time, their daily struggle to live and our fight to maintain our friendship as we experience daily harassment from some residents.