I perched in the tree. My tree. Watching, waiting.
The mouse warily poked its head out of its burrow. As if it knew I was there. But it needed to eat, too. It almost seemed to be weighing the options. Leave the safety of its burrow, and risk death by a hawk's talons? Or stay safe, and slowly starve?
I knew that it was just an animal. That it couldn't think logically, it couldn't weigh its options, it couldn't make rational decisions. It's just human nature to see humanity in every living being. To think that every creature has a soul.
Eventually, the mouse made its choice. It darted out of its burrow. I adjusted my stance on my branch, ready to dive and strike. Wait. Wait for the perfect moment. Wait for it to wander too far from its burrow, past the point where it could not retreat.
I was so totally focused on the mouse that I never even saw the other predator who had set its sights on my prey.
Suddenly, a flash of grey! So fast, the mouse never saw it coming!
The mouse was dead in an instant, its neck hanging limply between the teeth of the cat. Just an ordinary cat. A house cat. A stray. I could tell it was a stray by the way its ribs showed through its grey fur, and the sharp coldness in its eyes, evidence attesting to a life lived precariously, never knowing when the next meal would come.
I knew what that felt like.
I watched the cat, as it began to eat the mouse that would have been mine. There was something familiar in those eyes. Some inner playfulness that still shone beyond that hardened, wild ferocity.
I had a feeling I knew this house cat.
<Dude?> I whispered, and he looked up, wide-eyed, startled by the sound of a voice in his head.
It was all too easy for me to see what had happened. Too easy to see how my cat had come to be here, living in the wild. Like me.
<My uncle kicked you out when I disappeared, didn't he, Dude? You poor thing,> I said, flapping down from my tree. <He never really liked you in the first place. He didn't like you any more than he liked me,> I laughed humorlessly. <You were lucky he even let me get you. Do you remember that? I had to have you. I . . . I loved you. I'm . . . > I trailed off.
What was I doing? I was talking to a cat!
<I'm sorry,> I said anyway. I had to say it. I felt bad for abandoning him. For never even wondering what would become of him when I'd left.
Had he even known that something was different? Had he waited for me, wondering, hoping that I might one day return? Did he realize that I might never come back?
Or had he just forgotten me? Forgotten that I had ever existed?
I began to morph. I morphed into the human boy that Dude had once known.
He hissed and pulled his ears back, frightened of the hawk that was shifting and mutating before his eyes. But he didn't run. He stood his ground, fearlessly daring me with his eyes to make a move. And as my human flesh emerged from my feathers, recognition finally dawned in those hardened eyes.
He dropped the mouse, and ran to me. He jumped up on my legs and purred, rubbing his face against my chest. His claws dug into the fabric of my morphing suit, but it didn't hurt. It felt good. His claws pushed against me with a gentle pressure that assured me that he was there for me, and I was there for him, and we would never leave each other again.
I petted him. I scratched that spot behind his ear that he loved so much, and he purred louder and louder as he leaned down against my hand.
He'd remembered me.
For hours, I just sat there, stroking his flea-ridden, tattered fur, rubbing the ridges of his starved ribs. He'd had a hard life, too. Here he was, and here I was, two wild animals just trying to make our way in the world. A hawk, and a cat. By all rights, we ought to have been enemies. Rivals in the wild, competing for the same prey.
But here he was, asleep in my lap. Still purring, still kneading his claws ever so gently into my clothes, letting me know his affection. Here he was, the only connection to my human life that I still had left. The only being on earth who still loved me unconditionally. The only creature left on earth who simply and innocently loved me for who I was.
After a while, I could sense my time running low. The two-hour clock that I'd learned to feel in my bones, screamed in my ears to demorph. I apologized to Dude, and woke him up, as gently as I could. He resisted, didn't want to leave me again, even for a moment. But I had to demorph. I picked him up, set him down on the ground, using my arms to keep him away as I stood up. I closed my eyes, focusing on my hawk form.
Again, Dude looked upon my transformation with fear in his eyes. But there was sadness, and betrayal there, too. Why was his master abandoning him again? The human he knew and loved was turning into a bird of prey, leaving him alone, disappearing before his eyes.
He didn't understand. What had he done to deserve this? Why would his master foresake him?
<Dude, it's still me,> I tried to reassure him. Trying to make him understand. <I'm still Tobias. This is what I am now. I'm a hawk.>
He turned away. Turned his back on me, and began to walk away, looking dejected. But then his ears perked up again, and he glanced back at the hawk that had once been his master.
A dead mouse drooped from his teeth. He slowly, cautiously inched towards me with his kill, crouching, as if he half-expected me to attack him.
He laid the mouse at my feet. A difficult gift, I was sure. I could see that he needed it more than I did.
<Thank you,> I said hesitantly. <But you eat it. Go ahead. You look like you haven't eaten in days.>
He didn't answer, of course. He only stared at me. Waiting.
Finally, feeling guilty, I snapped up the mouse and swallowed it in one gulp. I needed it, too. I hadn't eaten in days, either. But I promised myself that I would somehow, someday, make it up to him.
I could swear that Dude had smiled when I'd accepted his gift. As if he knew that it meant that I could never leave him, now.
And I had no doubt that he knew exactly how much his gift had meant. To both of us.
This cat, this feral alley cat, once a pampered pet and now turned out on the streets to fend for himself, seemed to know me better than I knew myself. We were two of a kind, he and I. And I could swear to you that he understood me, just as much as I understood him.
Who says that animals don't have souls?
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This is just a little post-war one-shot I did. I've always wondered what happened to Dude after Tobias disappeared. So I finally wrote something to that effect.
