There She Goes Again

For many years, I’ve always been a lover of cats. Some died, some got lost, some were abducted, some were sick and vomited blood, and some were buried at my front yard. In short, most of the time my cats don’t last too long.

Except for this one cat I liked so much, Athena. See, I don’t love, I prefer to like because when we love we’re bound to dwell in sorrow sooner or later.

I am not so sure of the origin of her name, whether it was from the Greek myth’s goddess Athena or from the game Soul Calibur III or God of War. But anyway, let’s say the name was of Greek’s origin. I named the cat Athena because she’s a female of course and primarily because of her uncanny ability to fight with other cats like an epic cat warrior.

Before you get it wrong, Athena is not that expensive Persian cats costing from RM800 to RM2000 or if you like, they can cost higher than that. I don’t care anyway. Athena is not even a Siamese cat. She’s just a run of the mill cat from the gutter. My little brother found her on his way him from school. Athena was shivering in the rain and her mother was nowhere to be seen within the vicinity. At that time, she was still just this little cat. Even until now, she’s not getting any bigger, her size is considerably small. She is a forever a small cat, but thank God, she lasts long.

A domestic cat, or rather a village cat, Athena is a great hunter. She can catch birds when they’re swooping for foods, or simply when the birds are pestering her. Now isn’t that too cool for a cat? Athena is that cool, really. She can catch squirrels, lizard, small birds, snakes, grasshopper, you name it. She can even slap a dog in the face and no, I’m not kidding. Once, when there’s fucking stupid dog was roaming around the yard Athena was so mad (I think), that she ran so fast towards the dog, jumped and used her front leg to kick the dog’s face. It looked so much like a slap. Athena is really that awesome.

Not in the nature of a domestic village cat, Athena was not a tame cat which you can cuddle around because she used to be afraid of human except my family. Throughout the years, she learned a few things which I barely consciously notice until now, that I decided to blog about it.

These are few things that she had learned:

1. To certain people, the cat is rather clingy and of course that includes me. Hence, she likes to sit and lay on my lap, chest, buttock, shoulder, or anywhere depending on my positions. Due to her very sharp claw (which I don’t cut because she’s a hunter), I unconsciously taught her a rule. She must not sit or lay on areas which are not clothed. As an example, if I’m wearing a short pants or a boxer (as I rarely wear shirts at home), automatically the cat will choose the clothed areas of body and avoid the exposed areas. This works automatically each time, so I’m safe from her very sharp hunter claws.

2. The most wonderful thing about the cat is… She remembers her name! Actually she was the first one of my cats which remembers its own name. Thus, I finally get to call my own cat with its own name instead of the uncool and lame “Meow, meow, come here, meow, meow.”

3. She learned not to bring anything that she captured back to me or anyone in the family. Those days she used to bring corpses of headless squirrel, dead lizards, half-dead birds, snakes, back into the house. Once she brought this headless and of course, dead squirrel while I was sitting at the couch. It was a sign of love, I think.

4. She learned this habit of jumping and laying on anything that I focused too much doing, such as laptop, books, comics and fortunately excluding a plate of food. As an example, when I was reading Archie or other comics, she would be stalking around from a corner, then came nearer and nearer, than she would quietly stand on top of the opened comic and lay herself on the two pages. As if telling me, “Focus on caressing on my fur rather than reading this comic.” How adorable and annoying is that?